


Blur

by EmeraldLatias



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Angst, Canon Het Relationship, Developing Relationship, Drama, F/M, Hurt, Injury, Shooter, Suspense, relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-15
Updated: 2012-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-27 09:01:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 46,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldLatias/pseuds/EmeraldLatias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fate they wanted us to avoid, what was happening to us now...I couldn't tell what was worse anymore. The only thing I knew was that nothing would ever be the same, that everything would be destined to blur. (Post game, Squall x Rinoa)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bleed

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya! Just posting my newest multi-chaptered fic (well, relatively-speaking) so I can update here and FFnet too. For those who haven't seen this fic on there, I hope you enjoy. :)

_("I was bleeding when it all started...")_

-—-

  
Wednesday, July 7th (Late Afternoon, Day 0)

It was all black.

No colours to be seen, only sounds to be heard and sensations to be felt. Of course the situation he was looking at, or purposely not looking at, could have obviously changed if he'd only open his eyes, but he didn't want to.

It all hurt, everywhere. And obviously, it didn't mean anything good.

His mind was fuzzy; all he knew was the math calculating through his head, roughly estimating that he'd been out cold for what felt like a couple of hours judging by the intensity of the artificial light felt on his eyelids. He also felt the firm telltale feel of infirmary's mattress, the scent of harsh anti-sceptic and bleach permeating his nostrils combined with the faint, yet piercing smell of coppery blood and the solvent-masked unpleasantness of vomit still lingering in the air.

Another piece of information came back to him.

Safety. Someone had gotten him to safety, off of the warmed but hard Balamb city brick road and back in Garden where he should have been all along. Not dead or bleeding to death, but alive.

Just then, his self-centered musings were pulled astray by another, to a more altruistic thought,

… _But what about her?_

That he did not know with any certainty. It would require opening his eyes and accepting the reality of things, one which he wasn't sure if he wanted to face just yet.

Slowly but surely, his eyes fluttered open despite his apprehension, his sight as fuzzy as his thoughts had been earlier. As they began to adjust to the glaring and harsh lamp light hovering over him, he noted that his surroundings were perfectly Dr. Kadowaki and med intern-free from his bed-furnished alcove from the hazy outlines he could make out at the moment.

Knowing that he was occupying the closest bed to the door, judging by the sight of a rectangular blob right across from him, otherwise known as Dr. Kadowaki's desk, he hazarded a glance to his right to see if _she_  was occupying the other bed through the glass separating both rooms. Just as soon as he leaned on his right side in an attempt to gain a better view of the area displayed through the glass, he was deterred from leaning any further when a wicked jolt mercilessly raced down his entire right side.

In that very instant, he closed his eyes and whatever pain he'd felt earlier was eclipsed in the split second it took for him to mentally string together enough curse words to make a sailor blush. In the subsequent moment it took for that said string of curses to come from his mouth without any sign of restraint, the remainder of the dormant memories of the past while came back to him.

In a serendipitous moment, he dared to open his eyes only to see the good doctor now standing in front of the window he was trying to look through.

"…Finally awake, Commander Leonhart?" she said with a stern gaze and arms firmly crossed; it wasn't a question.

"… _It would appear…that way._ " he groggily answered, carefully raising his left arm afterwards to rub his eyes with his thumb and forefinger as he fought to remain composed through the pain.

"Are you well enough to speak to me for awhile?"

He lowered the hand to his side once again. " _Depends on_ … _what the subject is_."

"I'm afraid you don't have much of a choice." she told him with a twinge of sympathy that had been previously absent. "I need to know everything if the both of you want to make it through."


	2. Surmise

_("…The words didn't even fully register in my mind.")_

-—-

  
Wednesday, July 7th (Late Afternoon, Day 0)

Sympathetic tone or no, Squall was not in the mood for bluffs or bullshit.

"… _I find it hard to believe that we're…dying over gunshots that didn't hit vital organs._ " he mouthed.

"Alright, perhaps I misspoke. But the fact of the matter is that your injuries are very inconsistent and far more severe than what would be expected from a patient sustaining those kinds of wounds. I need to know why that is; we're not in the position to take foolish risks or making faulty assumptions here."

A slight sigh escaped the corner of his mouth. " _Other than what you…could possibly know already, I believe Pulse ammo was used, judging by the twitching I was…doing and seeing Rinoa do."_ he offered.  _"By the location of the shots, I…think the gunman only had the intention of incapacitating us._ "

 _That and the fact that we're not already dead,_ he sardonically mused as the unimaginable stinging finally faded.

"…Is that all you're volunteering to say?"

"…Everything else is irrelevant."

"I'm afraid to say that it's not the case Commander." she countered. "I already knew it was Pulse ammo from the disintegrated bullets we extracted during surgery a couple of hours ago. What I told you still stands even with the Pulse ammo in the equation."

A single beleaguered blink shattered the façade.

"…How?"

"Post-op testing showed that the nerve damage subsisted instead of showing the early stages of receding. While it's still early to tell anything, the fact that the preliminary investigation notes that you two were found relatively quickly after the shooting doesn't add up with the test results. They're more consistent with those found in instances where the bullets are lodged inside the body for a far longer period of time."

"In other words, you suspect our bodies absorbed far more toxin, causing the inconsistencies, and you want to know why."

"Yes and no." she answered. "While there is the possibility of a timeline error in the report, I believe there's an even larger likelihood that the bullets were a stronger variant of Pulse ammo which would explain far more of your injuries."

"…The existence of stronger variant bullets is only rumoured. Even then, wouldn't the treatment be the same?"

"No. It isn't." she replied, adjusting her glasses slightly. "The toxin coated on the bullets has an extremely complex and resistant synthetic composition, allowing it to wreak havoc on the surrounding nerves where the bullet penetrates, as I'm sure you are already aware of. The vaccines we have on hand are specifically made for regular Pulse ammo's toxin in the rare instances where the effects don't completely subside weeks after removing the bullet.

"The stronger variant's chemical composition would be different, making our existing vaccines either less effective to useless because of the resistance or potentially dangerous, depending on the alterations to the formula. In short, if we're dealing with a stronger variant which could even potentially spread, there would be no way to cure it."

"So if you're right, I'll either end up a cripple for the rest of my life or dead if it spreads to any vital organs." he surmised.

"That is indeed the situation we're looking at." she flatly answered. "Even if it's not, Garden still needs to know the details for the investigation. And if the shooter's intent was murder, it won't matter if you two get better over time if he decides to make another attempt."

Knowing that it would be futile to say it was a fluke, that a next time won't happen or even firmly defend his original notion that he was merely aiming to incapacitate for whatever reason, Squall conceded to her inarguable logic. Looking back, he realized that it would be incredibly foolish to waste something as rare and costly as Pulse ammo when far more common ammunition would have more than sufficed for mere thievery or what have you.

Even still, there were more important things at hand and this realization was only another possibility among others; he'd be the first to admit that the most logical scenario wasn't always the most likely. Summoning up the courage, or the stupidity, he wasn't sure which at the moment, Squall dared to ask about the sight he now saw stirring a little on the other side of the glass.

"How…is she?"

"Rinoa's stable condition but still in a fair amount of pain." she curtly answered.

"…I see."

Squall felt pang in his stomach after hearing that; he might have been stupid enough to lean on both his stitched-up thigh and shoulder wounds, but she'd been hit square in the stomach after he'd fallen right in front of her hours ago. There was no comparison between them. He wished it would have been him instead. But without the ability to swap pain, he chose the closest alternative to throwing himself to the floor.

"Are you aware of the current situation in Garden?"

Dr. Kadowaki tossed him a severely unimpressed look. Jackpot.

"From the conclusions and assumptions I've overheard from administrative staff all the way down to cadets," she began, "expect very little sympathy."

"No one outside of the investigation team should know the circumstances yet," he blurted, not expecting to hear this despite his original masochistic intention for asking, "-how is that possible?"

"The basic details are common knowledge already." Dr. Kadowaki explained. "You were with her. You should have been able to evade shots at mid-range. You had no weapon on you. I think it'd be easy to draw a simple conclusion from those three points of information."

"…Fair enough." he conceded with a sigh as he nearly made the mistake of adjusting his right arm's position, the lack of response from his arm muscles a rather mixed blessing. "Is the administrative staff demanding my resignation?"

"Surprisingly enough, no they aren't. I suspect they think you're too valuable to be demoted."

"Whatever." Squall rolled his eyes at the sight of her slight grin afterwards, purposely shifting gears shortly after. "How long will it take before you can rule out the possibility of a stronger toxin?"

"I am not certain on this but I'd say until there are signs of the nerve damage receding in a significant manner. I suspect that I'll have to base my decision from your condition since it will be easier to detect changes."

"Hm. ...How long before the inquisition?"

"You have until morning. I suggest you take the time to rest up while you have the chance."

After he nodded, she walked away and past the open door on his right which separated both halves of the infirmary, presumably to go tend to Rinoa. He tilted his head towards the glass, only to see his assumptions confirmed and the doctor re-emerge in her room. After the doctor pressed a button near the door, the window turned opaque and he couldn't see through it anymore.

He'd seen all he needed to however; she'd been writhing in her sleep and it hurt to watch.

Figuring that it would be wise to take Dr. Kadowaki's advice, he attempted to close his eyes, but not before an attempt to make a fist with his right hand.

He gritted his teeth when he couldn't even curl his fingers all the way.


	3. Resist

_("I'll tell the story on my own terms, not yours.")_

-—-

  
Thursday, July 8th (Morning, Day 1)

As good as Dr. Kadowaki's word, he had a full evening and night's rest without disruption or questioning. Granted, the aforementioned rest was sporadic at best, falling in and out of a light slumber, making him unsure if he'd even slept at all. Piece by piece, the morning eventually came, evidenced by the natural light slowly filtering through the window behind him, lighting up his room.

The morning also brought the sound of footsteps, two sets to be specific — naturally, one belonged to Dr. Kadowaki while the other, as he was quick to learn despite his groggy state, belonged to Xu. He wasn't the least bit surprised to see her ready to go without so much as asking Dr. Kadowaki of his state once she noticed his eyes were open — not even the fact that she came here fully expecting to talk to him before seven am had fazed him. One look at her face and he could tell that she was pissed underneath her neutral expression.

He couldn't blame her for being angry however; he was pretty pissed at himself too.

He wouldn't let her know that though.

"I take it that you know why I'm here, Commander Leonhart?"

"For the investigation." he tersely answered.

"Right. I need to know what happened that day in as much detail as possible."

"I was hit in the shoulder when we momentarily stopped once we were past the hotel. The second shot hit mid-thigh a second later and I buckled completely. Once I was on the ground, he shot Rinoa in the stomach and it wasn't long after that when we both passed out. I didn't see him."

The veil of her false expression seemingly lifted as she tossed him a stern look, her fingernails threatening to make permanent marks into the plastic clipboard she had in her left hand.

"How in the world could you not see the shooter? The area near the hotel has next to no cover." she incredulously told him.

With all the audacity he could muster, he replied with, "We were shot with Pulse ammo. Voluntarily moving body parts that would not stop twitching, giving out or bleeding doesn't always allow for the option."

Xu shook her head. "…You two are goddamn lucky whoever it was didn't finish the job." she commented. "Still, now's not the time to be secretive just because you managed to make it this far in one piece."

"…Why is that?" he asked. It didn't take Xu long before her earlier facade went to hell completely.

"Commander, now's not the time to test me. You  _know_ why I have to ask."

"…And?" he began to contest, "It's still my life to choose what I do with it or what risks I'm willing to take, or have I lost that basic right?"

Xu narrowed her eyes slightly.

"What about Rinoa then?" she said pointedly, "Are you going let her go down with you because of your refusal to help the situation?"

Squall narrowed his eyes in kind. While the underhanded tactic did not surprise him, it did nothing to lessen the blow.

"…I told you the pertinent details I remembered from the incident. It should more than suffice."

"It's a faulty assumption to think the personal details you omitted aren't important. The details leading up to the incident could establish where to look for information since we can rule out thievery as a motive because nothing was stolen. This may not even be a crime of opportunity."

"And just who would pre-meditate murder and run away after three shots and incapacitating the both of us, using something as rare and costly as Pulse Ammo?" he countered, fully aware, and perhaps secretly enjoying, that he was playing devil's advocate at this point, "I can comprehend compensating for weak aim by using that type of rounds, but it doesn't explain why there wasn't an alternate method as back up to finish the job short of the shooter mistaking my shoulder for my heart."

At this point, he'd finally gotten to her; she let out a long-drawn sigh and looked like she was repressing the urge to strangle him.

"I'm not going to indulge you by continuing this fruitless debate. Whether you like it or not, you are a vital part of Garden as a decorated soldier and as a public figurehead Squall. I am not going to purposely limit any possible avenues to explore in order to find out who this bastard is. I don't care what the hell you were doing with or to Rinoa before all this happened that you feel so compelled to hide, I need to know as much as possible to know where and what to look at for the investigation. If you'd feel more comfortable writing a report or recording an audio tape to hand in, I  _can_  arrange it."

… _And what makes you think I'm going to do that? It's none of your business no matter how much you say it is._

In his silence, she continued. "Whether you want to co-operate with this investigation or not, I'm not going to leave you alone until those details you're purposely omitting are known."

"…I think your time would be better spent investigating the crime scene further or searching the database for known or rumoured organisations known to carry Pulse ammo."

"Already did both." Xu smugly replied. "No valuable evidence was left at the crime scene. No fingerprints to be found and what little footprints we did find became impossible to trace by the time they led to the harbour front. The new confidentiality laws prevent purchase tracking save for weapon purchases already requiring registration. Now, are you ready to co-operate or are there any more  _suggestions_  about what I should do with my time?"

"I'd hate to interrupt you Xu but," The voice belonged to Dr. Kadowaki and she was wheeling a small cart with some gauze, tape, scissors among a few other things on it. "I need to change the old dressings and do some diagnostic tests. It might take awhile."

"Alright." Just before moving to let Dr. Kadowaki wheel her cart in front of him, she told him, "I'll be back some time this afternoon after attending my other engagements for the day, so don't think you're off the hook Commander."

After she left the infirmary altogether, the good doctor went to work, starting with untying the back of his infirmary gown to be able to properly access his shoulder dressing. Some time while she was brusquely peeling off the gauze back to expose the bloody underside, Squall mumbled his thanks to her.

"I'm not the one you should thank here. I would have let you squirm." she said as she began to tape up the new dressing, confusing him slightly until he connected the dots.

"…She's awake?"

Dr. Kadowaki nodded once she finished up with the tape. "She woke up while you were having that nonsensical debate with Xu and asked that I step in." she explained. "You're on your own from now on, however. Now, have you tried to raise your arm lately?"

"No."

"Good. Don't until I tell you to if you can help it. There was still a fair amount of residual bleeding so it might be best to wait until it stops altogether. That being said, the only diagnostic test I'll be performing for the next day or so will be the tap test. For now it'll only be your shoulder because the thigh wound was a little messer when surgery was done."

The test's namesake didn't mislead as she proceeded to tap his arm with a hard plastic, miniature mallet-like reflex instrument she took from the cart. As she moving closer to the wound site, starting from his forearm, each tap registered considerably less as she continued upwards until the trend broke; he had winced when she hit the bottom left corner of the dressing.

She didn't say anything after putting away the mallet but he silently knew he'd failed her expectations by the slightly dour look on her face, wordlessly moving on to changing his other dressing after rolling back the covers. The look on her face didn't change once she finished swapping the bandages and had proceded to remove his catheter and IV.

"Alright, I want you to make an effort to move around as much as you are able to handle using a wheelchair I will give to you shortly. Normally I wouldn't do such a thing so early on, but considering your wounds won't impede getting in and out of the chair as long as caution is exercised, I will make an exception in your case."

"You're only doing this because you know I won't stay in bed all day anyway." he dryly pointed out as he tied the back of the gown's strings together again with his good hand.

"Guilty as charged." she unabashedly admitted as she moved her cart, got the aforementioned wheelchair and put the brakes on. Squall wasted no time in taking advantage of the opportunity she presented him with, carefully edging closer to right side of the bed. "Feel free to thank me for this."

Right before dipping his left foot onto the floor, he indulged her request. "…Thanks."

And with a nod, she left for her desk, leaving the sight of the still-opaque glass unobstructed as he wondered about the other side while the morning rays warmed the right side of his face and danced across the bridge of his nose.

It had been two years and a month to the day he'd helped defeat Ultimecia and stop Time Compression. Apparently, that fact either meant very little or too much, depending on how one viewed this train wreck of a situation.


	4. Isolate

_("I don't want to be alone with my thoughts but I can't help it.")_

-—-

  
Thursday, July 8th (Morning, Day 1)

After carefully planting his left foot on the cold tile and grasping one of the chair's arms firmly with his left hand, Squall slowly eased himself into the wheelchair, thankful that his abdominal muscles weren't affected by the wounds to avoid making this task mission impossible.

During this time, he couldn't help but notice Dr. Kadowaki surveying his actions from her desk, though her expression had him at a loss. He couldn't tell whether or not her slightly bemused, possibly amused, look suggested that she was surprised that he managed to get into the chair without doing a face-plant or if was because she took notice that his entire right side was basically dead weight for all intents and purposes at the moment.

But then he looked down and realized that it was for a whole other reason altogether; the flimsy knot he made earlier with his one hand had come undone and his gown was starting to droop downwards, eerily mimicking an off-the shoulder blouse he'd seen Rinoa wear long ago.

Despite the severity of the situation, Dr. Kadowaki grinned a little as he began hastily gathering the back strings together to tie them up again. "I was wondering when you were going to notice it had come loose."

He tossed her a wry look. "The first thing I'm going to do once I get back to my office is make a purchase requisition for gowns with snaps instead of the ties. Mark my words."

"Alright, I will." she replied before semi-seriously adding, "You might want to look into increasing the overall infirmary budget while you're at it too."

"If I'm not dead by the preliminary fall budget drafting, maybe I'll consider it."

Leaving the exchange at that, Squall leaned back a little to allow his left hand to unlock the brakes. After he could feel the grip of the brakes releasing, he attempted to use his one hand on the wheel to propel himself forward as the other languidly rested on the arm of the chair. Despite his best efforts, the chair moved very little and what motion he did achieve, only served to move rather crookedly. He put his good foot down to stop what could only be described as, provided there was a heavily sarcastic bent to the words, a slow motion collision course towards the wall.

Squall looked up at Dr. Kadowaki once more, genuinely surprised that she was poring over some paperwork on her desk with a pen in hand, completely unaware what just happened. Not wanting to press his luck, he straightened out his wheels and inched forward using one foot.

While he did round the corner and went past the open doorway separating the two halves of the infirmary, he did not make another right turn. Instead, he went past the curtained doorway and veered towards the left and to a different door, one he knew belonging to a washroom.

As the doors hissed open in response to his weight triggering the sensor, Squall wasted no time in moving past the doorway and pressing the appropriate buttons on the keypad on the inside of the room to lock the doors. Once the short, telltale chime told him that they were indeed locked, he wheeled himself away from the doors altogether and headed towards the sink in the middle of the right-hand wall.

Firmly planting his good foot on the floor tile, Squall gripped the edge of the countertop to pull himself up to full height. Despite a few false starts and some dull stinging as a result, it wasn't before long until he was blankly staring at his own reflection in the mirror over the sink.

While Squall knew that he wasn't dead, he couldn't help but still feel like he was looking at a ghost in the mirror. What little colour he managed to acquire during the hot Balamb summer days had vanished, only leaving the dark circles accentuating the stormy blue of his irises and highlighting his desperate need for the sleep that would not come. Though he was not directly pressing against the wound, standing here with his hips leaning against the sink's lip for stability wasn't helping matters any as the dull stinging was beginning to grow.

Aware that he had very little time to spare at this point, he slowly reached for the tap's knob and twisted it until a steady stream of cold water was pouring down the sink. After splashing it vigorously against his waxy skin, he extended his hand to grab the liquid soap dispenser and turn it slightly so he could cup the spout sideways as he pressed it down with his thumb. He lathered up his face to strip away the grime, oil and odd residual dirt on his skin, splashing it all away with the water moments later.

Even though there was a paper towel dispenser within reach, just left of the mirror, Squall let the residual droplets freely meander down his face and into the sink. It wasn't long before he couldn't help but focus on the one thing the soapy water couldn't wash away; stubble, never mind four days' worth, wasn't something he saw very often. Though he really wasn't hung up on the fact that he couldn't currently do anything about in the slightest, what kept him fixated on this atypical feature of his was a particular two day-old memory, one he couldn't seem to escape for the life of him no matter how he tried.

He could remember her silly little grin as clear as day — the one single event that started it all.

-—-

  
" _...What's so funny?" he remembered asking shortly after she'd found him upon disembarking the train in Timber._

 _The grin grew a fraction. "You."_

" _Do I dare ask why?"_

" _Maybe, maybe not." she teased. When he tossed her a slight look, she spilled the beans. "Alright, it's not so much that it's funny but it's kind of amusing to see you with_ _ **actual**_ _stubble, not just five o' clock shadow. Hope you didn't go mad after not seeing me for so long."_

" _Mad would be giving myself an impromptu brush cut," he dryly answered, "And before you ask why, I was just busy these past few days trying to get a hold on all of the false documents coming through before the cadet transfer aptitude testing and interviews."_

" _Ah, I see. If it's anywhere as crazy as last time, I can see why you wouldn't have the time."_

" _...Tell me about it." he said in an exasperated tone. "Even after two years of Balamb's conservatorship over G-Garden, the amount of bureaucratic crap that still goes on is infuriating."_

 _Rinoa bit her lip slightly. "Sounds like you really needed this break."_

 _Though he still had a good week and a half to finish them up in reality, her call a few days ago inexplicably drove him to put a rather large dent in the lot in the first two days after the work came in. Part of him reasoned that it was to make sure he wasn't shirking his duties by taking a rare half-day off while another part nagged at him, telling him different. Regardless of the culprit, he didn't utter a single word on the subject, merely opting to nod; it was far simpler this way. Or at least it would be for that brief moment, he figured before proceeding to tackle other matters._

" _So what was it that you needed to tell me in person?" he asked._

 _With that warm smile still gracing her lips, she took his hand in hers. "Let's...go somewhere with a little less hustle and bustle first, ok?"_

 _He nodded once more, letting her wordlessly lead him through the busy streets of Timber as per usual. To where? He wouldn't know until they'd get there._

-—-

  
Zoning back into reality, he looked away from the mirror and submitted to the whims of his aching leg, bending downward on his good side to reach for the arm of the wheelchair for the stability to ease himself back into it. What he hadn't expected however, was for the said chair to start rolling backwards just as he gripped the arm. With an undignified attempt at regaining the disrupted balance, he fell sideways, hitting his left elbow on the seat, missing most of the chair altogether and smacking the ice-cold floor nice and hard and ever so awkwardly.

" _God fucking dammit!_ "

Before Squall knew it, he could hear the sound of footsteps echoing closer and closer, marking the ubiquitous end to his short-lived isolation. All he could do to shut it out was to screw his eyes shut and desperately cling to what little he had left before it would be stripped away and questioned by the outside world.

Finally, the knocks came when the door would not open. They were slow and calm at first, growing in ardour and frequency as he left them unanswered. Then, just as he thought Dr. Kadowaki was going to start mimicking a jackhammer, her voice resonated from the other side.

" _For the love of Hyne, please tell me you didn't fall into the toilet!_ "

Squall opened his eyes and, sanity be damned, he let out a singular, bitter chuckle.


	5. Wade

_("I'll tell the story on my own terms, not yours.")_

-—-

  
Thursday, July 8th (Morning, Day 1)

Unsurprisingly enough, Dr. Kadowaki didn't have the most pleasant expression on her face once she had to resort to the override code to open the door he wasn't in a hurry to open. No words passed her lips as she made some quick, purposeful strides to where he was, wasting no time to help get him back into the chair. Just when he got himself back into the seat, his eyes drifted downward, relieved that he saw no red seeping into the gown. It seemed as though he wasn't the only one to notice, however; before he could even say boo, the doctor pulled back the gown's hem and the underlying gauze to check on the wound.

"Hm. The wound's fine, no tears." she commented to herself as she lowered the gown and moved around to his back, untying the back of the gown to check on the shoulder wound. "The shoulder wound looks alright too so count yourself damn lucky. Furthermore, your file says you're almost twenty not thirteen; you can stop blushing any time now."

"...I'm not acknowledging that with a response."

Much to his chagrin and despite what people might have said about him, he was only human and his face could indeed redden from embarrassment. Dr. Kadowaki, on the other hand, was smirking as she re-tied everything.

"Fair enough." she casually replied. "Now, before you decided to go and do this, I received a call from the library. Apparently some medical supplies were sent there by mistake and my assistant called in sick today so I have no choice but to get the order myself. Can I trust you not to make an attempt to leave during the five to ten minutes I'll be gone?"

Squall sighed. "...Yes."

"You'd better." she told him, trading in her smirk for the usual stern look as they both started to head out of the bathroom . "I'll find some sort of cruel and unusual punishment if you don't."

" _Goody._ " he near-silently mouthed.

Dr. Kadowaki went ahead of him then, past the bathroom's threshold and two steps got her past the open doorway separating the halves of the infirmary. A couple of additional steps after that and she was gone altogether.

Now, it was just him and  _her_.

And it felt like some sort of conspiracy, similar to the times during the second sorceress war years ago where the gang were blatantly trying to set them up by giving them alone time.

Still, for whatever the reason, he didn't have the luxury of looking a gift horse in the mouth so he started to wheel himself towards the room he had passed earlier. Not particularly in the mood to have a face full of curtains, he stopped and carefully drew back them back before proceeding.

"... _Hey there stranger._ "

She'd seen him alread y the second the curtains were out of the way and in turn, he'd seen the unmistakable beginnings of a smile gracing her lips, making it seem as if she attempting to charm her way out of the otherwise-sad sight he saw from across the room, that nothing was wrong.

It was eating up his insides just knowing that her tricks weren't going to work on him.

"Hey." he mumbled back in spite of himself. The next thing he knew, he was already at the side of her bed without the faintest of ideas of how he got there, feeling like a hollowed-out body with a strange combination of fog and bees for brains.

Her smile blossomed a little more despite the pain he clearly saw etched on her face. "Glad to see you didn't fall into the toilet." she joshed. Without missing a beat, he rolled his eyes back at her.

"I just went in there to wash up. No toilets involved, I assure you.'" he dully clarified; she chuckled at him.

"Well...then I can be glad that one of us has the ability to get up. Dr. Kadowaki said it'll be awhile before they'll let me just to make sure the stitches heal up nicely. I just hope I don't go crazy before then." she told him, the grin on her face sobering soon after. "Hey, don't frown like that. We're alive, aren't we?"

"Yeah...I guess we are."

Just as soon as it left, there was that smile of hers again, trying to coax him into believing that this was some kind of happier parallel universe where all this shit wasn't happening. But, no matter how hard she tried, the second incarnation of this kind of ruse failed in exactly the same manner as the first and her smile quietly dissipated into the growing silence. Then he felt some warmness and the faintest of tugs at his right hand. When he looked down, he realized why her earnest grin had disappeared again.

"Your entire right arm has nerve damage...doesn't it?" she quietly asked, her hand on top of his, a gesture he hadn't even noticed earlier.

In a moment of quiet desperation, he strained to use what little strength his arm had to properly hold her hand in kind. Raising the right side his palm slightly, he slowly latched on to her pinkie and ring finger, gripping them as tightly as he could with his thumb and forefinger. Her expression eased ever so slightly under his hold but he secretly couldn't quite shake his own apprehension though he was determined not to let it show.

Taking a quick, but sharp breath, he looked up and told her, "...It'll go away eventually. Don't worry about me."

A worried look emerged. "It's kind of hard not to with all the things I overheard this morning with Xu."

Another sharp breath escaped his lips — a sigh this time. Inadvertently, his grip loosened.

"...How much did you hear?"

"Pretty much everything." she answered. "...You two were really loud."

"It won't be long before I'll have to explain everything anyway." he admitted after a long pause. "I only stalled thinking there would have been something to trace back to the shooter without explaining our whereabouts prior to the incident."

Rinoa blinked. "They really didn't find anything to work with?"

He shook his head. "...Not a single damn thing."

"I see..." she began, "Well...if telling Xu everything is the only way she can move forward with the investigation, then you shouldn't hold back because of me or us. Pride and dignity won't do us any good if we're dead."

As she took his hand in hers once more and began to softly trace circles on the back of his hand with her thumb in the silence, Squall couldn't help but bleakly wonder what would happen if they didn't survive the complications from the injuries they faced , regardless of what they said to help find the gunman. While he knew that it wouldn't help either of them to think such morose thoughts since he could not deny the validity of her point, he couldn't completely ignore the more morose of possibilities when he could barely feel her invisible patterns she was tracing on his skin either.

Regardless, whether it came down to the complications or getting whoever this deranged bastard was, it was still about picking and choosing the battles you fought and knowing what you stood to lose at all times and in every situation. For whatever reason, there was one particular thought that stood out amongst the rest in his mind.

 _They won't question whatever kind of relationship they think we have...nobody gives a damn about relationships or even who's screwing around with who as long as it doesn't interfere with their duties as SeeD — it'll be all of the circumstances surrounding us that they'll question._

"I...should go now." he calmly told her. "Dr. Kadowaki will be back any minute."

"Oh...ok."

Though the look on her face clearly suggested that she wanted him to stay, she still let him go.

 _...And I don't think I even fully understand those circumstances myself._

  
_  
_   


  



	6. Hurt

_("There never seems to be a moment where someone isn't hurting.")_

-—-

Thursday, July 8th (Morning, Day 1)

It nearly killed him to turn the other way and start dragging himself out of her room, but it had to be done. Dr. Kadowaki's inevitable return was an excuse despite the obvious truth to it, but there was something about what had just happened that somehow drove him to go back to his bed but he couldn't place the what or why in the equation. Nothing seemed to have a straight cause or answer at the moment and the thought of that alone was driving him insane.

One step at a time, he dragged himself and the wheelchair out of her room and back into his, questioning those very actions at the same time. The word 'coward' ping-ponged around his grey matter as a prominent a stab-like pang of guilt assaulted his stomach.

The sound of retching and the subsequent sick splat of viscous liquid hitting the tile flooring caught his ears and he hadn't even gotten the chance to reach up to pull at the drawn curtains. Just as he swivelled the chair back around to face her bed, he caught her glossy half-opened eyes filling up with soon to be tears. Whimpers and muted moans filled with hurt drew him back and their eyes met briefly before hers shut, twin streams of saline streaking down her face shortly after.

She was leaning towards the edge of the bed, her hands cradling her stomach. The timing was rather suspect, but he didn't let his thoughts linger on that note, preoccupied with just trying to drag the chair closer to where she was.

But he stopped two steps' worth of momentum later.

The potent stench of the vomit and coppery scent of blood assailed his nostrils but he had not stopped for that reason; it was because he'd looked down at the puddle of sick. He looked back at her instead, not sure if he could trust his vision.

"...Squall?" she mumbled back as she dared to crack open her eyes, "I think...I tore some of my stitches."

Inching his way a little closer, he leaned in a little to get a better view. Sure enough, he saw a patch of blood seep through an inch or two above where her navel would have been. Even still, he wasn't sure what to do or what to say outside of stating the obvious.

It would be foolish to attempt to fix anything when Kadowaki was bound to come back any minute now and when any non-magical solution would involve lifting up her gown indecently to access the wound site short of cutting holes in the material. She looked anxious enough as it was, adding dire embarrassment to the mix would not bode well for anybody.

"Squall...?" she called out again, "Is it even...normal to have electric blue puke?"

 _So I wasn't hallucinating things after all._

"That might been the residual poison, but I wouldn't know for sure." he told her truthfully. "We'll have to wait for Dr. Kadowaki."

"I'm...scared." Rinoa admitted, squeezing her eyes shut again; she had tried to raise her hand to try wiping away the sweat collecting on her brow only to bring it back down to the bloody stain on her gown before achieving the feat.

Acting on instinct alone, he swivelled the chair towards the bed and locked the brakes on it before reaching for the mattress with his one hand. Using that hand as an anchor, he put his good foot down and got up, leaning forward as much as he could to get an even closer look at her injuries.

When he saw that patches of her palms were stained with blood and she writhed in pain, his whole body seemingly caught on fire, core temperature rising with an invisible knife lodging itself in his navel, travelling up his abdomen with searing pain. It made the stabbing pangs of guilt before seem like a plastic knife trying to bluntly poke his stomach by comparison. He honestly didn't know where in the blue hell part of that had come from, but he was determined not to buckle or to let it show, secretly thankful for the hand he had firmly planted on the bed saving him from a one-way trip to the floor.

Though his posture had swayed a little to the left, he kept his eyes on her, trying to think of anything he could do in the interim for her pain as he ignored his own.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing useful came to mind. All of the standard curative spells were out of the question; any possible infections would remain unaffected and trapped under the mended skin tissue and he damn well knew it was why Dr. Kadowaki didn't go that route for either of them. Stealing morphine would take longer than it could possibly take the doctor to get here. Not to mention—

"Squall..." The sound of his name for the third time snapped him out of the reverie. Her eyes were open again with her hand on the back of his, surely staining them with her blood. "...I need you to stay here...with me...just in case...things get worse."

As he fought the basic urge to frown tooth and nail, he calmly told her, "As much as it hurts, you'll get through this. Torn stitches aren't the end of the world, trust me."

"I know...but it's just making this...seem so real. It wasn't before." she confessed to him. "Before...it was just a nightmare I was going to wake up from. ...Or maybe that was the drugs talking. God, I want more drugs now."

In spite of himself, he smirked a little; Rinoa didn't seem to appreciate this by the dour look on her face.

"Hey...don't smirk at my drug-less misfortune. And Hyne help me if I start to laugh."

"Sorry." he replied. "Would my standard cankerous look work better?"

Rinoa rolled her eyes. "You pick the absolute worst times to be cute with me, the absolute worst."

"Better you be mad about the poor timing than the alternative right now." he calmly told her, ignoring the distant noises in the background as he'd spoken.

"...Yeah, true."

" _Poor timing indeed._ " a third voice added. Squall turned his head slightly, not surprised that Dr. Kadowaki was its owner; the noises must have been the boxes she picked up earlier, he reckoned. "Mr. Leonhart, if you'll kindly sit back down in your chair and go to your own bed, I'll take things from here."

"I can't."

The doctor furrowed her brows. "Why not?"

Rather sheepishly, he said, "I don't know how, but most of my right side's suddenly fallen asleep. I'll fall down if I try getting back into the chair."

"For the love of Hyne," she uttered for the second time this morning, "you're just out to make my life complicated this morning aren't you?"


	7. Observe

_("All I can do is watch and wonder what'll happen next.")_

-—-

Thursday, July 8th (Afternoon, Day 1)

He had been more-or-less ordered to rest up following the incident with Rinoa and his own. ' _No ifs ands or buts, you go rest now._ ' Dr. Kadowaki told him right after helping to ease him back into his chair with her brusque actions. Never mind having her expose him in the privacy of the bathroom, getting manhandled into the seat with Rinoa to watch was by far more embarrassing.

Still, even as he reflected upon the memories of a few hours ago, those were just minor footnotes in the larger story overall. A few minutes after he was back into his seat and told to go back to rest in his own bed, he wheeled himself to the aforementioned bed but could not seemingly summon the energy to lift himself into it at that point. A good chunk of his right side was still plagued with pins and needles and, more importantly, he just didn't care enough to do so right then.

Just sitting in the wheelchair beside the bed and, with nothing really to look at, he lazily watched the opaque glass in front of him, trying to ignore the racket emanating from the other side. Fate decidedly had other plans when the tinted window suddenly became transparent again, as the noises all tied into why that was. The cart Dr. Kadowaki was using had accidentally bumped into the switch responsible for the window's opacity and she had not noticed the change, primarily facing the other way. Even when she was facing him, she wasn't looking up, working on cleaning the wound up and prepping it for new stitches; she never caught on. Neither did Rinoa.

Her eyes were squeezed shut, obviously focused on avoiding the sight of her stomach; she was covered from her waist down and chest up, but the wound was there for him to see in all its messy crimson-tinged glory. With a morbid, and possibly masochistic, curiosity taking hold, Squall couldn't look away for the life of him.

He wondered how she'd handle having the future scar her wound would yield once it healed. It was never a commonality they'd shared but one he knew she'd always been curious about, remembering a particular memory around the same time last year.

-—-

" _Hey Squall, I got a question for you. Think you could answer it?" she asked, sitting cross-legged on the other end of the couch. Mentally noting that the documents were on her lap instead of her hands, Squall tossed her a skeptical look from his end._

" _Not if it doesn't have anything to do with the tactical strategies."_

 _Rinoa rolled her eyes, adjusting one of the thin straps of her tank top. "For the record, choosing not to is different from not being able to. Besides, all I wanted to ask is how in the blue blazes you're not dying of heat in your bomber jacket right now."_

 _He shrugged. "I'm just used to it."_

" _Alright...but it's still summer." she pointed out. "Why do you always insist on wearing it when you come to Timber? I mean, it's not surgically attached to you in secret, is it?"_

" _...Of course not."_

" _So...do you take it off to sleep, shower and send it to the cleaners when it gets really dirty?"_

 _Squall irritably sighed. "Quit trying to be cute."_

" _Alright, alright. I still find it weird that I've never seen your arms. Or legs for that matter." she replied. Then a light bulb went off in her head. "Wait. Are you allergic to the sun?"_

" _No."_

 _After the monosyllabic reply, she finally gave up and returned to looking through her papers, albeit half-heartedly under the heat of the air-conditioner-less living room. He couldn't blame her in the slightest though. It was more humid than merely hot here; something that Balamb and Timber greatly differed on weather-wise. As much as he didn't want to admit it, it was even getting to him as well._

" _Ok, I officially can't think anymore." she declared after about five minutes of struggling with the charade as she unceremoniously dumped the papers on the floor. "I need to find a pool or a bath full of ice cubes A-S-A-P."_

 _Despite her declarations, he had continued long after she'd left the couch and the room altogether. But there was only so much he could do or try before even he had to succumb to the sweltering heat. While she was still gone, he took off the jacket and placed it in the middle of the couch, past the papers. It still wasn't nearly enough to deal with the humidity, but his pride would not allow for anything more; come hell or high water, wearing the leather pants and v-neck tee would have to do._

" _Wow...now this is a surprise." her voice chirped._

 _He made the mistake of looking back with the intention of quipping something back at her._

 _Though he was not a man of many words in the first place, the fact that nothing left his mouth right then still didn't go unnoticed for long; Rinoa had too keen a sense for picking out moments to tease him with, as seldom as they occurred._

"— _And judging from the look on your face, it seems like you're as surprised as I am."_

 _He casually wiped away the sweat collecting on his brow before he replied with, "First you tease me for wearing the jacket, then you tease me for taking it off. Pick one or the other, preferably neither."_

 _Far faster he would have ever expected, he heard the words, "Ok, ok, I'll stop. Truce?"_

 _While his curiosity was undoubtedly piqued, experience told him that truces were more like traps when it came to her. Empty promises meant to lull him into a false sense of security until the next joke or prank she'd pull ten minutes later. Still, it didn't change the fact that his curiosity was indeed piqued._

 _Right then, she extended her hand. "C'mon, drop the papers and let's go find someplace to cool down. If I can't even concentrate on this stuff right now, I couldn't expect you to either."_

 _Gathering up all his papers so they made a neat pile, Squall handed them to her; this made her smirk. Judging by the way she hastily tucked the papers underneath her other arm, he concluded she hadn't extended her hand to him for that reason._

 _Even still, he got up on his own and she moved the side, picking up the other thicket of paper on the floor shortly after to combine it with the stack she had. As she put both on the nearby coffee table on the right side of the couch, he simply stood there, waiting for the moment she'd turn around and officially declare her intentions to go to a pool or possibly hijack someone's sprinkler; something she was unofficially declaring at the moment when he noticed she'd swapped her tank top for a ruby-red bandeau bathing suit top minutes ago._

 _Soon enough, she turned around to face him with a warm, yet strangely sympathetic look on her face._

" _I didn't think I would have ever guessed that was why you were so adamant about wearing that coat all the time."_

 _He tilted his head a little. "...I'm not following you."_

" _That." She pointed to his right forearm. "It doesn't look new."_

 _Squall raised the arm in question and suddenly realized what she was referring to, what he'd forgotten about. Upon the particular realization that he'd forgotten completely, he couldn't help but think that old ruses died just as hard as old habits._

" _Its not."_

" _Is there a story behind it or was it just another case of Seifer getting under your skin?" she asked, trying to joke. The polite chuckles which followed told another story, giving away her trepidation. He couldn't blame her for her fears though; it's why he wore the coat in the first place._

" _No, Seifer had nothing to do it for a change." he began to explain. "To make a long story short, I was fifteen and it happened when I was trying to practice on my own in the Training Centre. Lost my grip on the hilt in mid-air and without thinking, I tried to grab the blade with my right hand. I didn't catch it and it didn't end pretty but I was lucky that I didn't bleed out. Unfortunately, it brought me more attention than I would have liked afterwards because it looked as if I'd tried to slit my wrist. I wasn't about to tell everyone the truth because it wasn't any of their business. That approach didn't make matters any better though."_

" _So you started wearing the coat then?"_

" _Pretty much." he answered. "It was easier just to receive detention for violating the dress code rather than to wear the long-sleeved winter uniform in the summer. Eventually, people forgot about the scar like I'd anticipated and teachers stopped bothering to write me up for not wearing my uniform when it became obvious that I wasn't learning anything from it."_

" _Smart move." she said with a smile. "I'm glad that it wasn't anything too serious, well, I mean it was but...you know what I meant."_

" _I know what you meant." he repeated._

" _Thanks."_

 _After she said her thanks, Rinoa raised her hand to her face, her expression filling with what he figured was thought, thought most likely directed towards the plan of action, something he'd previously assumed she'd already mapped out. Standing still, just a few steps away from her, he felt as though he had the lion's share thought-wise, namely this previously unheard of inclination rapidly taking up valuable grey matter._

 _On a whim, he just let it go, let it materialize. "It did bother me a little."_

 _This caught her attention; the hand was now at her side. "Hm?"_

 _Now he was on the fence. Continue or withdraw?_

" _The scar." he elaborated a moment later, cementing his choice indefinitely. "Reminded me of my stupidity. Didn't care for the one on across my nose either but I...obviously didn't have the luxury of hiding that one."_

 _The smile on her face returned. "Thanks for sharing that with me. I really appreciate it." she told him. Shortly after, he couldn't help but notice that she was fidgeting a little, making him wonder if he'd made her uncomfortable with that admission; then she started to talk again. "Um...I was thinking of going swimming but the place I'm thinking of going to wouldn't be alright with you going in just your boxers and so...would it be okay if I just bought you some swim trunks as a birthday present and then we could do something fun after swimming?"_

" _You don't have to do that Rinoa. I can buy my own."_

" _But I want to something for your birthday." she replied. "I'd feel crummy if you had to pay for something that was my idea in the first place."_

" _Actually..." Here came the part he wanted to avoid. "...my birthday isn't today."_

" _It isn't? Ugh. Zone and his faulty intelligence reports again." Rinoa grumbled. "How far am I off by?"_

" _Twenty days." he told her. "Now I'm curious though. How did he get that date?"_

" _Um...he tried hacking into the birth certificate registry in Winhill."_

 _Squall couldn't help but look at her incredulously. "Rinoa, we've both seen what Winhill is like. There's no way they'd keep a computer birth certificate database, let alone a computer."_

" _Um...he tried hacking into the zipped up compartment of your bag where your Garden ID was the last time you came here. I caught him trying to get dirt on you and told him that if he didn't tell me your birthday I'd totally rat him out to you. Guess he didn't see the 2 in 23."_

 _While the incredulous look faded, a rare amused look emerged in its stead. "...Still doesn't trust me after a year of helping out with the tactical aspects of your plans?"_

 _Rinoa shook her head vigorously. "Nope. Still thinks there's something fishy about your motivations for helping us out with no pay."_

 _He sighed. "Tried pointing out the vague wording of your contract or the indiscriminate pay system Garden has for SeeD?"_

" _I could have but I didn't." she honestly answered. "It's more fun to watch him be irrationally suspicious. Plus he keeps you on your toes this way. I'm sure you've noticed during the meetings with the three of us."_

 _Oh yeah, he was definitely kept on his toes with his random dirty looks and the memorable instance where he protested, 'I don't know Squall...Lauren doesn't sound like a good name for Rinoa's fake alias at this hotel party. She looks more like a Camilla to me, don't you agree Rinoa?'_

 _He wanted to snort at the thought. Yeah...right._

" _That time he complained about my undercover name doesn't count."_

 _Squall tilted his head a little. "How did you-"_

" _-Know you were thinking about that?" she finished, never really giving him much of a chance to answer, "I didn't. Just made a guess after seeing your lip curl a little bit and got lucky. Glad to know you're not a complete puzzle to me though."_

" _I could always start speaking to you in ancient Centran if the prospect of that is too much." he dryly replied._

 _This earned him a playful punch in the arm. "No, don't do that. I have enough trouble following you as it is sometimes. But do you actually know how to speak ancient Centran?"_

 _He nodded._

" _Am I the only one who knows that you can?"_

 _He nodded again._

" _Oh wow." she mumbled. "I wish I could tell you something about me that's as interesting to return the favour."_

" _Doesn't have to be as interesting as you think it has to be." he told her. Rinoa blinked._

" _Seriously? You want to know some useless fact about me?"_

 _Squall shrugged. "Don't see why not. Ancient Centran is useless for the most part."_

 _Without warning, she placed the palm of her hand over his forehead. "Okay...you feel way too hot for my liking. We need to find you some cold tap water right away before you sprout any more delirious ideas. But in all seriousness, I thought of one thing if you honestly want me to share something."_

 _While Squall would be the first to acknowledge that his unexplained behaviour as of a few minutes ago was probably throwing her through a huge loop, he could also tell that she did appreciate the idea on some level, but something was obviously holding her back even more. It was easy not wanting to care, but following through was a whole other story, especially with the right company._

 _He didn't know what possessed him to flip that switch for today, whether it was the heat or the fact that he was comfortable with his monthly, sometimes bi-monthly visits over the past year to help her and the other Owls out with their planning, but he just wanted to follow through instead of the same old song and dance._

" _Sure."_

" _...Okay." Clearing her throat a little, she continued. "Right after my mother died when I was little, I hid in my family's library, reading all the storybooks that my mother used to read over and over until I'd fall asleep and my father found me and carried me back to bed. I started to make a habit of this for awhile and my teachers started to notice how much faster I read than the other kids after a few months of this. By the age of nine, I could already speed read."_

" _Can you still?"_

 _She nodded. "Well, except for where Ancient Centran is concerned, yeah, I could probably read you under the table though I do better with stories rather than papers with tons of legalese."_

" _...Or legal bullshit."_

 _She smirked. "That too." she concurred. "So...you want to go bathing suit hunting now? I bet I could find you a cute one with—"_

"— _Whatever you're thinking, please stop if it involves chocobos in any shape or form."_

" _Aw. You're no fun when you're playing psychic."_

" _...When have I ever been fun?"_

-—-

Still watching the scene unfold, Squall admitted that maybe the memory he'd just recalled wasn't the one he meant to recall, that one occurring a couple of weeks later, but never the less, it wasn't a memory worth forgetting or discarding. This was something he wished he could forget.

But reality was never one to be particularly kind, at least not to him. That had been a lesson he'd learned far too long ago.


	8. Withhold

_("The words left unspoken only reinforces the charade, it seems.")_

-—-

Thursday, July 8th (Afternoon, Day 1)

She finally looked up and it was game over. With Rinoa's wound all cleaned up and ready for the needle to go in for the first suture, Dr. Kadowaki shot him a stern look and gestured to the bed with her free hand. The hand movement prompted Rinoa to look rightward and, with a brave but weary look on her face, she caught his eye for a second before she must have been told to let her head rest on the pillow and close her eyes. Rebelling against his inclination to just sit there once the window turned opaque again, he swivelled the chair and used his good side as the anchor to get himself on the bed. The minor curse words towards his difficulties remained unspoken on his tongue.

Squall didn't know what it was but, all of a sudden, he didn't have the energy to do much else once he was on the bed, feeling like he was suffering the initial effects of a sleep spell or those of losing a sizable amount of blood. With the latter a definite possibility, considering how screwed up his nerves had the potential to be right now, he looked down, only to find that there were no signs of bleeding or an unattended tear.

With his last ounce of strength before slumping his own head down on the pillow, a light bulb went off in his head though it didn't matter – he couldn't expand on the thought. His eyelids kept on drooping lower and lower before each successive blink and his mind soon rejected all requests to think, succumbing to slumber shortly after the initial onslaught of symptoms...

" _Man, this is so weird. Never thought I'd see the day."_

" _Yeah...it really is. I mean, nothing that's been said really sounded right."_ another voice whispered. " _I can't tell if it's just the shock talking or if there's just more to it than that._ "

" _Well, the investigation's not done Selph."_ The third voice belonged Quistis. " _So far, nothing seems cut and dry at this point so I would suspect there is a lot more going on than we think._ "

" _You still can't say that it isn't weird. I mean, I've never seen Squall go anywhere without his gunblade. I remember the time he had it on him when he came to drag my ass from the pub in Dollet after this one mission — nearly scared the crap out of the other guys there."_

" _Man, I wish I would have been there for that."_ A short-lived chuckle and the subsequent sigh added the room's stillness.  _"Hyne, I hope it isn't too late already."_

With that last comment from Zell, Squall mentally decided that he wouldn't be able to take this conversation anymore if it took any further turns towards the morose. He cracked his eyes open and, slowly but surely, the sight of the gang at the foot of his bed began to filter in.

" _...I'm not dead yet._ " he quietly commented.

All their heads whipped towards him, all eyes were on him. It was unsettling to say the least, especially having to face them in a ghastly infirmary gown, but it was the lesser of two evils; he just had to keep on reminding himself that it was.

After the initial shock wore off, Selphie was the first to speak up.

"Hey...how are you and Rin doing, Squall?"

The alien meekness to her voice threw him off, but it was understandable.

"I think...we've definitely seen better days." he honestly replied, albeit with some polite phrasing. He was aware that it wouldn't be enough to satiate them but...starting off without giving anyone a coronary had to count for something.

"But...you guys  _are_ going to be ok, right?" she softly added; the others looked at her.

While the unspoken question loomed in the air for a far shorter time than he'd anticipated, it almost came as a relief to have it out in the open so early. Unfortunately, he also knew that the proverbial knife cutting the said tension surrounding the question would be indiscriminate, potentially cutting and mutilating their emotions in the process too. Still, it was not something he could hide — his and Rinoa's conditions would let them know regardless if he lied through his teeth or tried to be stoic.

"I don't know." he admitted. "The possible complications can't be ruled out right now."

In an eerily calm tone, Quistis asked, "Were you referring to the nerve damage from the bullets?"

Although Squall was certain that she was aware of more than she let on, he humoured her with a nod. "There's a chance that the damage will either remain or migrate. If it's the latter, nothing can be done about it."

After the last word ushered in the silence once more, Squall found his eyes drawn to Selphie's hard, unnatural blinks. As far as SeeD went, it was a piss-poor attempt to dam her emotions. As far as being friends went, it was a piss-poor attempt on his part to avoid eliciting such a reaction. Although knowing that a slight rework of the phrasing would not change anything, it didn't mean he was immune to the subsequent pangs of guilt.

"Sorry." he hastily added. "There isn't a better way to say this short of making light of the situation."

Selphie nodded, rubbing her eyes. After awhile, Squall wasn't sure if she was going to rub them raw. She didn't but it was plain to see the gleam she must have been trying to control. No tears were falling but it didn't matter; Selphie wasn't someone who cried or looked like she would cry.

And that bothered him.

"We know." she said, breaking up his internal diatribe. "It's just...kinda hard seeing you and Rin like this, especially when that lowlife must have had to wait to take advantage of you two while you were preoccupied with what you were doing in Balamb."

The abrupt left turn left pulled and played with what little stable nerves he had but there was a perverse kind of relief to see Selphie act closer to her normal prying self. Thankfully, the perverse relief quickly transitioned to the normal kind when Quistis placed a hand on the brunette's shoulder. She didn't have to say a word after that, merely needing to give the shorter girl a slight look when she looked up at her afterwards. Right then and there, he knew that the potential subject was dropped.

While the question would undoubtedly still linger in the air, he took whatever comfort he could find in knowing that he wouldn't have to explain everything right now.

"So...uh, how was Rinoa before... all this happened? Still in Timber?"

But of course, that particular assumption didn't take Zell into account. It was a particularly large oversight on the commander's part but, quite frankly, he didn't spend too much time wallowing over his error in light of the circumstances and the fact that he was going to halt the momentum with a few words.

"Fine. And yes."

"Oh, ok." the blond mumbled. "You know if anyone's told Caraway or Zone and Watts?"

 _A-and._..there was ridiculously-large oversight number two. And my God, did it ever sting. Not even Quistis sparing a few words to let everyone know that Caraway was indeed informed lessened it one bit. Naturally, no one knew how much it stung so the conversation continued without his consent or consideration.

"So...is anyone letting Zone and Watts know?" Zell asked, "They might think something's up if they notice she's been gone for a couple of days."

Once again, Quistis took the liberty of answering. "From what I've heard, Caraway's the only one for now. This is obviously a very complicated situation so I would assume Cid is limiting information on a strict need-to-know basis."

"What about Sir Laguna?" That had been Selphie.  _Obviously._  "Or...wait— there's also Angelo too. Do you think one of us should get her?"

Although he couldn't exactly pin down the reason — whether it was merely out of annoyance, irritation or a base need to regain the reigns of this runaway discussion — Squall finally had enough.

"That won't be an issue." he interjected. "Rinoa put her down about a month ago."

Once more, their heads, even Irvine's though he had not said so much as a word in this conversation, whipped towards him, their faces sporting varied levels of confusion. Again, it was Selphie who broke the silence in this occasion.

"She did? Weird. She never told any of us." she commented.

"She originally didn't plan on telling anyone right now. Not even me." he began. "I only found out by chance."

"Or...you noticed that you weren't stepping on any tails in Rinoa's apartment and made the mistake of asking why?" Irvine ribbed.

Squall rolled his eyes. Apparently, stepping on Angelo's tail  _once_  a long, long time ago made him into an incorrigible dog tail abuser. Fortunately, the karma in the universe sought to rectify itself seconds later when Selphie swatted him for the joke.

"Not funny Irvine." she chided, turning her attention back to Squall shortly after. "...Was Angelo sick or did something happen to her?"

The swift change in her fixation from their situation to Angelo's was slightly disconcerting and odd, but quite frankly, who was he to complain about the equally-odd tangent that  _he_  brought on? Squall answered the question instead of raising more of them in his head.

"Rinoa wasn't entirely sure but she thinks that she might have accidently ingested something poisonous."

"Oh. That's sad."

With that, another uncomfortable silence emerged with Selphie's short-lived fixation seemingly satiated. At this point, it became obvious to Squall that they were holding back, abruptly choosing not to prod for more details of how he found out by chance despite all the signs pointed to the inevitability and the potential segue Irvine's joke could have allowed for. When he took notice of all the furtive looks they were giving each other, it made it all the more concrete in his mind.  _Might as well put this visit out of its misery,_  he concluded.

"I think need more rest now." he plainly told them.

Despite the extremely transparent excuse, he was fortunate enough that they played along with the pretenses after a few surprised 'oh's were blurted by some. Once the well-intentioned 'get well's and promises to visit him and Rinoa sometime later were uttered, everyone save for Quistis, who told everyone that she needed to speak with Dr. Kadowaki about the recent shipment errors concerning the infirmary's medical supplies, left.

With their eyes no longer on him but with nothing better to do, Squall decided to attempt following through with his excuse. Closing his eyes, he couldn't help but sabotage the effort and the whole point of asking everyone to leave by allowing further thoughts to seep in however, persisting long after what felt like a good quarter of an hour of closed eye-darkness and background noise. The worst of the reoccurring offenders stemming from the visit bringing him back to the distant memory of when Rinoa came up with a 'cardboard box in the closet' analogy, the one he had mistakenly assumed stopped applying long ago.

' _People don't usually think or care about the cardboard boxes in the closet because they're out of plain sight._ ' she had told him once upon a time. ' _But every so often, they'll open the closet and wonder, 'hey, what's in here' and open it up just to see. Most of the time, it's stuff that you don't use or need so the box gets closed and that's the end of that 'til the next time. In the end, it doesn't usually affect you or matter, but the curiosity's always going to be there because of that fleeting hint of mystery – doesn't matter if it's something you're purposely trying to hide or something as plain and boring like old, ratty clothes, it'll be there on some level._ '

Needless to say, he wished for the sleep to genuinely come to make good on the excuse. On the surface, all the ingredients were there to do so – a fairly quiet room, the lack of energy and time to do so. Of course, reality never seemed to take the path of the most likely or logical.

"You can stop going through the motions Squall. I need to talk to you."

Without thinking on it much, he opened his eyes at Quistis's request and looked back at her, wholly unsurprised that she was still here. His eyes followed her as she walked from the foot of his bed to seat herself on the nearby stool between the headboard and the mirrored wall. Shortly after she sat down, she no longer exuded the calm confidence and authority her cool but firm tone implied mere seconds ago; once he noticed her subtle fidgeting and that her knees were trembling ever so slightly, the apprehension shown through as clear as day.

Then the trembles stopped the moment she knew she had his attention.

"I'm not sure if you figured this out already but, I'm working on the investigation with Xu." she told him. "Another meeting was pushed forward so I volunteered to take Xu's place since she won't have time to pick up where your...verbal sparring match left off."

"So...I assume there hasn't been any progress since this morning?" he asked.

"No, there hasn't, which, makes this important since we don't have a clear timeframe to work with." she simply answered.

Squall tossed her a quizzical look. "...I was under the impression that the shooting's timeframe was more-or-less established already."

"Actually, that wasn't what I was referring to." she began to clarify. "I meant the amount of time that you and Rinoa's conditions will allow us to work with to solve the case. I was talking with Dr. Kadowaki before everyone else came in to get a better idea of that. She told me that it was unclear at the moment like you'd said earlier, but..."

His ears perked up at that  _'but.'_ Her tone was too devoid of any sort of hope to infer anything positive from that, especially when the slight pause seemingly tugged at the corners of her lips, the first true crack in the mask she'd been wearing. In turn, the frown gave way to a sigh.

"She said that even though Rinoa is clearly in worse condition, she's also doing better than she was expecting from her. That being said, she also mentioned your symptoms don't seem to be completely consistent with your wounds."

"...In what way?"

"She couldn't tell me specifics, but it seemed as if you were experiencing some after-effects that would make far more sense in Rinoa's case than in yours."

 _I can't deny that myself but, I wonder,_ he briefly thought,  _could it be more than coincidence_ _?_

"With that being said, I think it would be best for Garden to have as much information as possible to carry out the search and not waste the time that might not be there." she reasoned, lacing her fingers together on her lap. "I'm not going to use Xu's hardball tactics but I still  _need_  to know where you've been in the past few months other than Garden or any assigned missions where your whereabouts would have been accounted for in reports. I might ask for more details, but I don't think I'll need more than just your whereabouts."

Part of Squall wanted to snort at this. He damn-well knew that she had already known what the answer would be long before she asked — asking was only another pretense among the others he waded through today. But he still answered her straight. No matter how patronizing it might and could have been, on some level, he knew that there was a genuine kindness present in her attempt to work with him instead of trying to pry it out of him by force. That he couldn't deny. And whether he wanted to admit it or not, he could not ignore the truth she spoke of earlier, that time was becoming less and less of a luxury.

"...I've only been to Timber by train, usually spending a few hours there every few weeks to help with some of the more complex tactical plans the Owls wanted to achieve. I haven't seen any overly suspicious people, just the odd Galbadian soldier still lingering in town although there have been less of them in the past few months."

If Squall didn't know any better, he could have sworn that Quistis's features sported a second's worth of shock from the length of his answer. Regardless of the possibility of his eyes were playing tricks on him, it didn't take long for the follow up question to materialize.

"Have you noticed any soldiers consistently frequenting the same places on your visits?"

A faint moan-turned-yawn in the background held his attention for a moment. "Not...to my knowledge. Has there been a composite sketch done on the gunman?"

Quistis shook her head. "There haven't been any witnesses coming forward yet to take down a description. Dr. Kadowaki had strict orders not to disturb Rinoa's slumber so no one's been able to question her yet either."

"...You might have the chance to ask her now." he quietly told her. "I think I just heard her wake up."

Just as Quistis got up to check for herself and ultimately disappear into the other half of the infirmary where her room was when he turned out to be correct, Squall pinched the bridge of his nose.

 _...Why didn't it even occur to me to ask her when I had the chance?_


	9. Evoke

_("Everyone's taken a path to get where they are now, some winding more than others.")_

-—-

Thursday, July 8th (Evening, Day 1)

Squall couldn't hear anything of their conversation on the other side. He was partly grateful for this, not wanting to know the possible pertinent details Rinoa had in her sole possession for far longer than necessary, thanks to him. The other side of him wished he would have been able to make it out, to squash or bolster the possibility of his wish for the case to move forward and help eliminate the all-consuming uncertainties.

Moving forward...it would have been better than falling back, he thought.

Aimlessly staring at the ceiling, he completely disregarded that notion just as fast as it came. He reckoned that he'd be less of a hypocrite that way as his mind began to drift back in time in spite of everything...like it often had as of late.

-—-

Monday, March 2nd (Evening, One Year Ago)

Leaning on the pillar closest to the exit door, he looked up at the room's sole clock. It told him that there would officially be another three hours left of the SeeD graduation ball and wearing his itchy-as-hell SeeD uniform. Unofficially, that number would probably be closer to an hour tops, still harbouring the dull headache from the afternoon and having already finished what little he had to contribute to the ceremony a long time ago — an admittedly-stilted speech.

Looking down at the dance floor before him, couples started to congregate as the orchestra began to play the first few measures of the first piece – a lively, flourishing number. Amid the throng of people there, he spotted Selphie and Irvine dead center on the floor. Taking a sip from his champagne flute, he couldn't help but smirk to himself when he couldn't seem to look away.

If anything, their height-related lack of coordination only served as further motivation for Selphie to plod on which...incidentally also described the way they were dancing. Looking back, it made him wonder how he and Rinoa must have looked to onlookers last year at the graduation ball when they had swung wildly and repeatedly crashed into other couples as she was trying to get him to dance properly with her. Divorcing himself from the thought, he scanned the area. Still nothing.

After raising the glass to his lips for one last sip, Squall placed the now-empty flute at a nearby vacant table for the servers to collect and quietly strode out of the room. Looking at the clock once more, it became plain to see that there was no real point in remaining there short of helping the servers drain flute after champagne-filled flute – and considering that he wanted to walk out of here in a non-tipsy state with all of his dignity intact, he figured that he'd already done enough of that for one night.

Walking towards the elevator, he was met with surprisingly little resistance through the moderate cluster of people hanging around the door and from those heading back into the room. Once he passed the initial thicket of people, the crowds thinned considerably. Reaching the main circular hallway after a minute in the elevator, it almost seemed like a ghost town as he took those first few steps down the stairs, feeling as though he was the only one in Garden on the first floor.

Then he saw her in a sweeping, strapless mint-green dress and stopped walking — one frantic wave in his direction was all it took.

One unfortunate misstep after a few strides was all it took for him to come running towards her.

Crumpled on the floor, she looked up at him with a pained smile on her face once he was within arm's reach. "Some grand entrance I had to have, huh?"

"I've seen worse." he told her, offering her his hand, which she gladly took. But when he noticed a shot of pain spread across her features when she got to her feet, he didn't dare to let go just yet. "...Is it sprained?"

"I can't seem to put much weight on it. Could you help me get to that ledge so I can check?"

He was genuinely surprised when she didn't start yelping on the spot when he picked her up and started walking with her in his arms instead. She did toss a look back at him however.

" _Okay_...where are you taking me and why are you carrying me like this?"

"The infirmary. And because it's faster this way."  _...And because I'm not completely thinking straight for once._

"It's probably not that bad Squall." she objected once he was halfway down the infirmary corridor. "I probably only need some ice, not the works."

"Just wait until we see what we're dealing with before you make that kind of qualification."

Without warning, Rinoa let out a small peal of laughter. "Funny, I should be saying the same to you about carrying me here before checking how bad the sprain was."

He conveniently ignored her as he pulled out his key card and slid it through the reader so the door opened once they got to the infirmary.

"Just so you know, your silence only makes it that much more obvious that even you know that I got you on this one Squall."

...But of course, it was a futile effort. That being said, it didn't mean that he still couldn't partake in a few more retorts and underhanded tactics, however.

"I could conveniently drop you right now if you want to make sure this isn't a pointless trip." he dryly replied.

A split second was all it took for the smug look to vanish completely. " _No,_  don't do that. That would be really bad-"

"-Relax." he firmly told her, trying to get her to stay a little more still. "I didn't mean it."

Once he gently deposited her on the nearby bed, Squall sat at the foot of it and wasted no time in checking out the wound, pulling back the long hem just enough to see her ankle. It wasn't long before she sat up to oversee his efforts and instinctively moved her hands towards the strap of her right heel before he could do as much as take a second glance at it. When she winced while she started to undo the strap herself, it was clear to see he had been in the right albeit his admittedly-hasty actions. Her foot was already swollen and slightly discoloured.

When they both seemed to be aware of this conclusion, she looked up at him, slight grimace and rosy blush on her face.

"Well, I guess Mondays still suck no matter how you end up dressing for them." she tried to joke. "Any reason why they had it on a Monday anyway?"

"Scheduling." he briefly answered. "It had to be pushed up from the traditional first Friday in March because there's an important meeting about G-Garden's conservatorship early on Saturday and the rest of the month is already a logistical nightmare to begin with. They didn't want risk anyone being hungover or not present as this is...typically the only night Garden is a little more lenient about alcohol consumption. I couldn't argue with Selphie's logic of  _'trying to make Mondays suck a little less'_  given the time constraints either."

Rinoa narrowed her eyes slightly. "You totally made that last thing up just to make fun of me."

He shook his head. "I didn't. You can even ask her yourself should she decide to barge in here unannounced."

"Erm, I'll just...take your word for it then." she mumbled. "So...you are the only one with the key card for the infirmary other than Kadowaki, right?"

"Most admins have them but I don't foresee anyone coming here short of a major catastrophe. Earlier today, Dr. Kadowaki made it clear that she will not be in the infirmary to babysit cadets who consume more than they can handle at or after the ball."

Rinoa wrinkled her nose. "Ouch. That's harsh."

Squall couldn't help but smirk a little in spite of himself before he got up in search of some ice packs and bandages in the back. "...I've heard horror stories from last year so I'm not entirely surprised."

After the dull give of the springs gave a slight squeak, he heard a few muted grumbles escape her lips not long afterwards, right before he'd even taken a single step past the dividing wall between both halves of the infirmary. He didn't look back and opted to move forward and just get what was needed, figuring that she was merely trying to take off the hell _\- er_ , heel with a bit of difficulty.

A few steps later and he was staring at the storage fridge in the right corner of the far back wall beside the locked door where Dr. Kadowaki kept medicine and surgical supplies other than the basic gauze, antiseptics and bandages. Instinctively coiling his fingers around the handle, he gave it a small tug to open it. Inside lied a few labelled bottles of medicine on the side door, some vials and specimen containers on the bottom, an empty row above that and an assortment of various types and sizes of ice packs among other things in the freezer compartment.

Grabbing one of the cloth-covered, medium-sized packs, Squall closed the door and headed into the other nearby room, remembering that he saw part of a cart littered with what looked like some bandages, tape and gauze left right by the head of the neatly-made bed through the translucent glass when he was finished looking at her foot. Once he was past the curtained doorway, the cart was indeed where he thought it'd be and so he walked over there to take it.

Although Squall could have been out of the room in a flat half-minute, he lingered for a moment. Although the headache he harboured had continued to dully throb in his temples all the while, it was only until now that he realized that he hadn't even thought about it once since he saw her take that spill.

And of course, now that he'd made that particular realization, it had increased in intensity to compensate for his displaced attention. Still, he thought, it would not do her any good to stand here and idly watch her remove her other heel through glass and so he promptly wheeled the cart over to the other side. Shortly after, he placed it at the edge of her bed and sat down beside her foot.

Upon his return, she tossed him a little smirk right after she unceremoniously dropped both heels onto the floor to her left and scooted away from him just enough so he wasn't half off the bed anymore. "So now that we're more-or-less done getting side-tracked by my klutziness," she began as he wasted no time tending to her foot by reaching over to grab a spare pillow to give it some elevation for starters, "how have you been? It feels like the last time I really talked to you without it being about Owls' stuff was New Years."

Her toenails were painted the same colour of her dress...funny how he didn't pick on that earlier, he thought.  _Oh,_  right, her question.

"Just busy...it never seems to stop." he tersely answered, now bandaging up her foot. "At least it' _s-_ " Tug. Snip. Clip. Tape. "-all slowly getting back to normal."

"That's good. I'm sure that having the SeeD ball alone is an important step for that too."

"It is." he concurred, shifting his body rightward so he could look at her directly after he had finished putting everything back on the cart behind him. "...I take it Selphie's told you about Irvine making SeeD?"

She smirked. "Would you believe me if I said that I had to keep the phone a good arm's length away from my head when she called about that?"

"—Yes." he agreed immediately before adding, "My ears were on the verge of bleeding not even two minutes after I watched Cid hand the results to all that passed this year in his office."

"Oh, so you're helping him out with that now?"

He shrugged. "All I did was stand there so...not really. Administration just wanted a placeholder for what the ousted Garden faculty used to do, which was basically making sure Cid stayed on topic during his speech for the short ceremony."

"Oh, they  _would_  pick you for that." she commented with a slight chuckle. "In fact, I can just see it now – Commander Squall Leonhart, professional shush-er."

"Rinoa?"

"...Yeah?"

"Nothing. I just wanted to make you think I was going to say shush."

"You're such a brat."

Without warning, she leaned forward in an attempt to swat him lightly although he grabbed her wrist before she could do such thing, however. Her attempt with her free left hand was just as unsuccessful as he grabbed that wrist just as fast. Even still, she was resilient and as sneaky as ever when she attempted to free herself using her left foot's toes to dig underneath his ribcage in an underhanded move to tickle him.

Unfortunately for her, that line of attack banked on likelihood that he would be ticklish there.

And as it turned out, the itchy suit was good for something other than making him itch after all; the coarse material provided an adequate defense against her roaming toes.

The snag in her plan did not deter her from trying to use the same foot to kick at his right hand in an effort to loosen his grip on her wrist however. Her relentless, not to mention fruitless, attempts at freeing herself amused him enough not simply raise her left hand high enough to make it completely out of reach and make her stop trying. But despite his secret amusement, he had too much respect for her to let this continue for another reason.

"...Keep it up and the bottom of your dress is going to fall back further than you want it to." he warned her. Just like that, she stopped.

Then out of nowhere, she started giggling.

"Oh sure, you tell me that but you won't let me go." she pointed out. "...You're secretly enjoying this, aren't you?"

"No, it's merely the consequences you earned for trying to swat me." he deadpanned. "If you want out, you have to find a legitimate way to loosen my grip."

Rinoa rolled her eyes. "Sure, sure...if you say so."

Then, without so much as a word, she threw all her weight backwards. The momentum, paired up with the impaired resistance from his sitting position, forced him to follow her backwards because his grip was still too strong to let go completely. But because she had purposely leaned rightward so he'd avoid her foot...there was a large clatter...followed by some sputtering.

...Rinoa had followed him down to the floor, where he served as her cushion and broke her fall.

After screwing his eyes shut upon impact, her big brown eyes and a sheepish grimace were waiting for him once he opened them. The tendrils of her long, dark hair ticked his neck, her and her dress covered him like a weighted blanket and her wrists were finally free from his grip.

She'd finally beaten his asinine game.

"I'm so sorry Squall, I thought you were going to let go when I leaned back." she apologized. "Are you okay?"

"...I'll be fine." he mouthed, still a little winded. "...Your foot didn't hit anything, did it?"

She shook her head. Soon, the upturned corners of her sheepish grin flattened in the wake of a more neutral, yet thoughtful expression. Then it came back just as fast as it disappeared.

"So...I guess that it would be a good idea to get up right now?"

In spite of himself, he tossed her a bit of a look. "That...would probably be a good idea. People get enough wrong ideas about us as it is."

The sheepish grin reverted back into a smirk. "You're making it sound as if you're anticipating people to find us here after all."

"I'm not." he countered. "Logically speaking, more people are likely to find us here because more people have access to the necessary card keys as opposed to my dorm or anyone else's. That's it."

" _Suure_..." she teased, drawing out her syllables as she slinked off him and crouched in such away so she put all her weight on the good foot before getting a firm grasp of the mattress behind her and hoisting herself up. He got up a few seconds after and grabbed one of the nearby chairs to place beside the head of her bed as she inched backwards on the mottled sheets so her foot was resting on the pillows again. The sly grin on her face remained when he sat down on his chair.

"...Don't trust me much, do you?" she joshed.

"No, I do."

Rinoa tilted her head a little. "So...you do, but you won't sit on a mattress with plenty of room? You're going to have to explain that one to me Squall."

"...Figured I'd have to." he added before a slight sigh. "In case if you haven't noticed, I'm not the pillar of rational decisions tonight. That's why I'm sitting here. I'm...not quite in the mood to end up on the floor again somehow."

The smile returned. "You're right; you aren't a pillar of rational decisions tonight but, in a way...it's kind of nice that you aren't for a change. On the other hand, it doesn't mean you're going to make us fall to the floor again so park your butt closer."

Squall didn't. He stayed put. Following a brief but unsuccessful staring match, Rinoa decided to do the opposite.

She swiveled her feet over the edge and faster than he could object to it, she made a place for herself on his lap one quick step later. Another impromptu staring match resumed. Neither were willing to back down, albeit for Squall, it was for a lack of a better reason. He honestly did not know why she was staring at him like this. It definitely wasn't like the last stare down where she was trying to get him to sit with her; she'd already negated his stubbornness by coming closer to him rather than him to her.

Then she finally looked away and lost eye contact for a moment, only to regain it with a softer look in her eyes and on her face. It did not help his thoughts any, muddling them beyond recognition long before she decided to rest her head against his chest. The dull thump of contact and her added warmth brought out the long-dormant knots in his stomach. Squall couldn't place why.

Nothing had an explanation and not being able to trace the logic bothered him. It bothered him to wonder if he could have if his mind would have been sharper had it not been for the few flutes of champagne he'd downed earlier. He knew he was dwelling on a purely-illogical thought given the quantities, yes, but being aware of the absence of logic in tonight's events didn't deter him from continuing in this path. The sharpening pangs of his headache did not help matters any.

Lost in his cyclic thoughts, he almost hadn't heard her when moved her head away from his chest and softly asked, "...Is there something wrong Squall?"

Right then, he snapped out of his reverie. "...Sorry. It's just this headache I've had nearly all day."

"Oh. Didn't know you had one." she said. "Have you taken anything for it at all?"

He shook his head. "Too busy. ...Couldn't take anything right now if I wanted to either; all the infirmary's pills are stored in a storage room under a regular lock and key that I don't have access to. I don't have anything in my dorm either."

"That's unlucky. It's a shame that Esuna doesn't cover headaches. Or at least...I don't think it does. Hmm." She thoughtfully paused for a moment before muttering a few words under her breath. A tingling sensation soon ran down his spine. "Did it work?"

"...I think it did." he quietly told her, purposely withholding his personal amazement that it did nothing to counteract the alcohol in his system. Considering a headache didn't exactly fall under the types of statuses Esuna was known to cure and the alcohol's effects on the body could be likened to a Poison spell on certain levels, it seemed rather odd.

"Wow. I honestly didn't think it would. Glad to see that it did though." she admitted before letting out a slight chuckle. "Now if only we can get a Cure would work for my foot."

"A Cure spell would only mend tissue and boost energy levels." he reminded her. "...You're out of luck for that sprain."

"Damn. Guess I'll just have to stay here on your lap."

"...Your sprain would benefit more from you resting on the bed and keeping it raised instead of being curled up like this."

"It's off the floor so it'll be fine. Besides," Rinoa began, "-if you would have moved, I wouldn't have taken the drastic measure of sitting on your lap."

Squall tossed her a look. "...Right, because sitting on someone's lap serves as the perfect incentive to make them want to sit with them elsewhere. Didn't know that."

"Ugh. Not what I meant Squall." she replied with an eye roll. "Hyne, can't I just be allowed to bother with what I know makes you uncomfortable scot-free without getting a snarky reply?"

"No. The Garden handbook prohibits it."

Rinoa let out a purposely overdramatic sigh before resting her head and a hand on his chest again. "...Should have figured that much."

When another sigh, albeit far more subdued, escaped, punctuated with a sharp exhale, Squall's attention turned towards her legs. Making an educated guess that her bandaged foot's ankle was sandwiched between her good foot and his knee and that it hurt to keep it that way by the contours of her dress and her wincing, he couldn't reason why she'd stay curled up on his lap any longer.

The possibility of this entire thing being a ruse be damned, it was obvious that she needed to be back on the bed.

Without giving her any warning, both his hands slid off the chair's arms, placing his left palm squarely on the center of her back and sliding his right arm underneath her right leg. He coiled his hand around where he felt the crooks of the backs of her knees through her dress and brought them closer to his torso to gain the necessary grip and stability to pick her up. Before he could do so however, Rinoa lifted her head away from his chest. While her hand she'd rested there remained, the softer, almost wistful look she had on her face from earlier returned.

They'd exchanged briefest of glances when Squall had noticed another slow but sharp breath on her end. Fearing that his arm he'd hooked underneath her knees must have increased the amount of contact her bad ankle was having against her other foot, he decided he would not waste any more time like this and began to get up.

But when Rinoa leaned forward and Squall soon found her lips suddenly yet delicately pressed against his, he scrapped such plans just as quickly as he'd made them. He was unable to think and yet, he was able to do so all too well; it was as if his brain ran faster in response to being effectively short-circuited albeit the futility of the compensation. Squall couldn't figure out where this had come from, if he'd done anything to set her off, or simply the rooted logic in anything, especially when it was coming to the matters of his own actions. He hadn't stopped her short upon contact or even when his mind had finally caught up to what was happening moments later.

No, Squall was reciprocating the slow but burning intensity behind every movement, mirroring her actions as perfectly as if they were like reflections. He wanted to blame it on the champagne, tiredness...just _something,_ but his brain wouldn't give into the lies it tried conjuring in response to his fear and the budding, in-spite-of-the-circumstances enjoyment. His mind was reiterating over again that they hadn't done anything physical since the sole kiss he'd given her on the balcony during post-Time Compression ball nearly nine months ago and that there was a  _reason_  for that.

While his thoughts prevented him from truly living in the moment, Rinoa coiled the arm she'd been previously resting on his chest around his nape in an effort to bring him a little closer to him as she shifted a little so she'd be facing his body at less of an angle. As the hand he had on her back slipped a little, so had his thoughts when he could feel the reverberations from the slight moan of pain escaping her lips. Although obviously not intentional on her part, it wreaked havoc on his mind and senses, reminding him why they were  _actually_ here and yet, making it increasingly difficult for logic to regain the reigns over his actions.

As she moved closer to bridge the gap on her own accord, he had to move the hand he'd rested under the backs of her knees. When this caused her to wince a few more times, he finally opened his eyes and parted lips. With their faces not even two inches apart, those chocolate-brown eyes were all he saw when she slowly opened them. Locking eyes, he studied her face for a moment before sliding his left hand up and returned his right back under her thighs and picked her up like he'd always meant to do earlier.

With a few brisk actions, he got up with her in his arms and carefully deposited her on the bed, making sure her bandaged foot was squarely resting on the pillow. When her body was fully on the mattress, the hand she had wrapped around his neck earlier was reluctant to let go but as she had one good look into his eyes from where she was, she let her grip loosen and her hand slide down almost sensually. He froze.

Then he walked away, retreating into the bathroom shortly after.

This was too close, not meant to be and yet, for something he wouldn't have ever predicted happening tonight, it had still managed to go this far. Looking in the mirror with hands on either side of the sink's edges, he was visibly flustered and red. Had he not stopped this prematurely, he wagered that he would have probably noticed more than just a flushed face.

 _Knock. Knock. Pause. Knock._

...Looks like she wasn't going to let him get away that easily. Turning his head to peer at the door behind him, Squall couldn't blame her persistence. He also wasn't surprised that she was already at the door in spite of her foot either. Still, he let a few moments pass before he walked over to the door and punched in the code to eliminate the barrier the door provided.

Once the door retracted into the wall, all he could see was her in the doorway. With one hand awkwardly gripping the small lip of the doorframe for support, the other planted on the cart she must have used to get around and her dress's hem brushing the floor and dirtied, she didn't cut a very intimidating figure. No, it was quite the opposite. She very much looked the part of the little girl who'd been caught red handed with her arm deep in the cookie jar.

"...I'm really, really sorry." she apologized profusely. "I know that probably shouldn't have happened. And...it did anyway."

"Why?"

"...Why?" she repeated.

"Yes, why." Squall reiterated. "...I'd like to know."

The corner of her lips dipped south. "I honestly...don't have an answer for you. I'm sorry."

"...Was it something I did?" he probed, going on the hunch she didn't want to say it was his fault. She shook her head.

"No. I..." Rinoa sighed, looking down momentarily. "...Hyne, this is hard to say but...I thought we were more than this, more than just, well...that's the thing. ...I really don't know anymore. I get that you're busy with getting Garden back on track and I appreciate you using what little time you have off to help the Owls even though you didn't have to, I really do. I just...I think we forgot about  _us_ along the way. If we're only friends...that's fine, I just want to know."

By the look in her eyes, that small gleam in them right now...he knew that she'd be utterly crushed if he said they were just friends. Even still, he damn well knew he'd be lying through his teeth if he said that, and yet...he couldn't quite describe what they were either; it had been so long since he could pick any word to define them with certainty, if ever.

Short of casting a combination of Stop and Sleep spells, Squall knew most of his options right now were limited and none-too-desirable. Amid the worst case scenarios he conjured for himself, he reasoned that it would be the best to go with the simplest of choices; he owed her that much.

"Rinoa...you know I'd be lying if I told you we were only friends." he told her, dreading the moment he'd dim the hopeful gleam in her eyes as fast as his words had brought it there. But, he needn't say anything for the moment to occur; his pause had already given him away.

" _But_...you don't know what we are either." she inferred. Sadly, he had to nod in agreement. "I see. Well, whenever you do figure it out...don't be afraid to tell me, ok?"

Squall wasn't sure if this was merely a formality before turning and leaving on him or if she honestly meant it and was waiting for an answer. Even though she stood still and showed no signs that she was going to leave any time before she got some sort of response, he still wasn't sure if he was supposed to answer. Then a slight smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

"You're allowed to answer Squall. It wasn't a trick." she informed him with a slight chuckle. When he finally gave her a nod, the smile blossomed and she took a small step forward to innocently kiss him on the cheek. "Thank you. And don't worry, there's no lipstick there." she told him, giggling slightly when he had instinctively rubbed the side of his face. "Now, do you think it'd be ok if we stole a wheelchair or some crutches so I can get a chance to see everyone?"

He shrugged. "Don't see why not."

"Alright, let's do that then."

"Sure."

-—-

Still peering at the ceiling, Squall couldn't help but wonder if that fateful night had marked the beginning of when things had truly begun to complicate and change. He looked over and noticed no difference from before and, with no Quistis to be seen or heard of from his vantage point, there was no point for him to continue looking to the side and opted to resume looking at the ceiling, allowing his mind to drift back and recall more memories of times once past but still very fresh in his memory.

He just hoped that he would be mistaken and his recollection fruitless, creating no fresh wounds on top of the many he'd endured over the years. He'd had enough scars to last a lifetime. The last thing he needed would be to be completely disfigured.


	10. Falter

_("Resolve is not only getting back up after the fall, but the will to do so over and over again.")_

-—-

Monday, March 2nd (Evening, One Year Ago)

He hadn't even made it a foot past the bathroom before hearing a few knocks on the door. Catching Rinoa's gaze, he offered a hand to get her back to the bed quickly. As she sat back to take advantage of pillow and ice pack for her foot, Squall walked over to the door and swiped his card into the card reader to make the door hiss open.

The commander almost did a double take.

Dr. Kadowaki and a female intern he recognized in front of two stretchers carrying two clearly inebriated and injured cadets were certainly not who he had in mind to expect on the other side. Not saying a word, Squall stepped aside and merely watched as Dr. Kadowaki and the intern pushed the stretchers through. Though he did not dare to voice his musings, he thought it was mildly amusing to see the two of them carry out their duties in formalwear.

"Squall, Rinoa'll have to go someplace else to rest for that foot injury. We need both beds." Dr. Kadowaki told him before telling Rinoa the same moments prior to retreating to the other half of the room for the other bed.

Walking over to her bed, Squall picked up Rinoa's heels by the straps and handed them to her as she scooted towards the left edge of the bed to make room for the intern's charge. When he realized there was still the matter of finding a wheelchair for her, Squall caught the intern's eye and inquired about it.

"Addison, are there any wheelchairs still around in the back to borrow?"

Stopping for a moment, Addison shook her head. "All loaned out. There are some crutches still left, but I'm afraid they're too big for your companion. Sorry Commander."

"It's alright." Rinoa told her as she slowly got off the bed before turning towards Squall. "Guess you'll have to be my crutch, then?"

As if on cue, Squall extended a hand for her to latch onto before she wrapped her right arm around his shoulder for support and he lightly wrapped his left around the middle of her back. After they had walked out, or hobbled out in Rinoa's case, the raven-haired woman chuckled a little.

"...Something funny?" he asked.

"Oh, nothing important."

"Should I be worried that you're laughing at things you don't want to admit to?"

"No. It just...really isn't." she reiterated. "I just wondered why Dr. Kadowaki knocked at the door. Doesn't she have a key or do the card keys work differently after-hours?"

"Yes and no." Squall began. "At night, within the hours set by the systems, doors don't stay open for long, just enough to get in or out before they close and lock again. This is to prevent problems with theft at night with the occasional overnight patient or late night emergencies. As far as why Dr. Kadowaki was knocking...I don't know."

"Well, the lights were on. You think she could have heard the last bit of what we said from the bathroom?"

"The walls would be too thick. The light would be another story though."

"Ah. It makes sense now. She probably knocked just to make sure she wasn't interrupting anything."

Shooting her a slight look, he plainly told her, "I'm going to assume that she didn't have her card key on her for a reason I'm not particularly interested in inventing right now."

Inevitably, his companion giggled. "Fair enough." she concluded before shifting gears after a couple dozen or so hobbles got them into the main circular hallway and out of the open corridor. "So...you think everyone will still be there by the time we get to the ballroom?"

After focusing his attention whole-heartedly getting towards the stairs and helping her up them in one piece to get to the main elevator, Squall gave her a shrug. "I would assume so. I left during the first dance and it's only been about a half-hour since then. It'll be another two and a half hours before it's officially over."

"Ah, so that would explain why I was late. I didn't know you guys were starting it earlier this year. Then again, it's not like I would have been able to get here on time even if I knew." She looked up at Squall mid-step on the last stair they had to climb. "Want to know why?"

He shrugged. "...I have a feeling you're going to tell me regardless of what I say so you might as well go ahead."

"Looks like I have trained you well." Conveniently ignoring the commander rolling his eyes as she punched the button to go up, Rinoa began explaining. "The tailor who shortened the hem of this dress goofed up and didn't take nearly enough off. There wasn't enough time to fix it so I had to buy new heels at the very last minute since the ones I planned on wearing weren't high enough. In short, it was a miracle that I got here when I did. Well, not like it matters now. Dancing is definitely out of the question for a  _long_  time."

Looking at the pair of heels in her other hand, Squall couldn't help but quip, "I think I speak for myself and any of your other potential would-have-been dance partners when I say that it's probably for the best that it's out of the question. Those things look...deadly."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Rinoa smirk after looking at the heels for a moment too right before passing through the elevator's now-opened doors. "True, but I also like to think that it would have served as added incentive too. You know, out of the fear that I'd stomp on your feet if you don't?"

"...Right."

Rinoa smirked a little more. "Oh, just imagine what fun we could have had if I would have worn these last year." she teased. "In any case, I think I'm going to stick with short cocktail dresses from now on. Having random people stare at me is a lot easier to deal with than this nonsense which...reminds me. If I haven't said this already, thank you very much for all your help tonight Squall."

"...It's not a problem." he said, refusing to acknowledge the slight knot in his stomach and confusion from that convoluted segue. Now that they were finally on the second floor and not far from the ballroom's doors, the idle need to chitchat waned, concentrating on finding their friends instead.

Noticing that the ballroom floor still filled with couples dancing to the orchestra as they made their first steps into the room, Squall guided Rinoa to the side of the doors so they wouldn't block the entrance. Before he could even size up who, if anyone was on the dance floor at the moment as they stood still to scope out the room, he heard a muted chuckle accompanying the sounds of the string section. Of course, with a single look leftward, Squall knew that Rinoa was the culprit.

Shortly after she looked rightward and made eye contact with him, she lowered her hand from her lips and whispered, " _Selphie and Irvine dancing...oh my God, too cute._ "

Squall nodded in agreement, taking a glance at the dance floor for a second before whispering back, "... _Seems like they haven't improved one bit since the first dance._ "

This elicited a smirk from Rinoa. " _Just...don't tell them what either of us said, ok? I know Selphie was trying hard to get Irvine to take dance lessons a couple of weeks ago and she'd be heartbroken to know that it, well, didn't quite work out. Anyway, I've spotted everyone else around the pillar near the balcony. Think we can squeak around the dance floor?_ "

With another nod, Squall took the first step to head leftward to circle around the dancing couples, figuring that at the very least, he'd be the one in the way of errant limbs and not her by being on the right side. When they'd made it around three-quarters of the way a minute or two later, Quistis and Zell saw them in the distance, the latter waving them over.

Then Squall's earlier theory had been proven accurate when he felt a random closed fist lightly whack his shoulder blade. Turning around, all he saw were the amused grins of Selphie and Irvine. Combined with the looks on their faces and being completely stationary by the time he turned back, he ventured a guess and assumed it was done on purpose.

"Heey...didn't think I'd see you two back here." Selphie happily chirped, still glued to Irvine's side. "Waiting 'til later to heat up the dance floor?"

Grinning, Rinoa waved her heels at the brunette. "No dancing tonight Selphie. These did me in."

"Aah, bummer. Well, we'll see you over there in a sec."

After some mutual nodding and congratulations on Rinoa's part to the newly-minted SeeD, the couple resumed dancing for the last few measures of the song and Squall and Rinoa finally made their way to the others where the latter wasted no time to break the ice.

"Hey guys, sorry I'm late. These satanic heels made me fall and sprain my ankle pretty badly." she told their friends, waving the heels around once more for effect.

"Ah, no worries Rin. We understand." That had been Zell. With a slight grin and glance towards Squall, he asked, "Want me to get a chair or has Squall volunteered to be your crutch for the evening?"

Much to Squall's slight displeasure, she looked at him with a bit of a squint, pretending to seriously consider the idea for couple of seconds before telling Zell it'd be greatly appreciated if he could find a chair. As the blond walked away in search, Rinoa watched him for a moment before settling her sights onto Quistis.

"It's been awhile, huh?" she commented, "-Been keeping busy like everyone else?"

Quistis gave her a polite nod. "Definitely. Cid's been seriously considering reinstating my instructor's license so if all goes well, I could be back teaching as early as the fall semester."

"Oh, that's great!" Rinoa enthused. "I hope it all works out for you."

"Thank you. How have things been in Timber? I haven't quite been able to keep up with the news with so much to do at the moment, but I hear it's going alright for the most part, right?"

"Yes, definitely. All the baby steps we've been taking are finally shaping up into bigger changes." she answered. "Still not in the clear yet but, I'd say about... _half_  of the occupying soldiers are gone now and not just hiding in plains clothes either. I don't know if it has to do with allocating them elsewhere to try and rebuild other structures in Galbadia, but as long as they're seeing the occupation in Timber as less of a priority, we'll take whatever small victories we can get."

"Ah, yes. The rebuilding. Squall and I know all too well about that." Quistis said with a slight chuckle and sigh.

When Squall followed suit with the latter, Zell had the good timing to show up just then with a chair in hand not long after and soon before the commander could shake his head at the insanity that was dealing with G-Garden or anything Galbadia-related. In spite of this, the three of them looked at the blond with rather peculiar stares, a number which surely increased to five with the addition of Selphie and Irvine now nearby.

"Finally wanted to be able to look down on everyone, eh Zell?" Irvine ribbed. Zell rolled his eyes and set down the rather tall barstool right by the pillar.

"For your information, it's not for me, it's for Rinoa, and it's all I could find because all the normal chairs were for the chefs and servers who threatened to cut me off if I took one of their chairs, so there." the blond countered before turning to his aforementioned friend, "Sorry about that Rinoa. I really tried."

"It's no problem Zell. I'm just...um, not sure how I'll get on."

"Float spell?" Irvine quipped after he and Selphie walked around from behind her and Squall.

"Um, thanks for the suggestion but I'm not really in the mood for everyone to look up my dress as impossible as it sounds." Rinoa politely declined.

When this comment earned her more than a few strange looks, even from Quistis and Squall, the latter took it upon himself to fill her in by whispering, " _You...could have phrased that better._ "

Finally catching onto the other interpretation a moment later, Rinoa turned a deep red. "Oh God, that's not what I meant. I just meant you'd think it'd be impossible for that to happen with the ridiculously long hem on this dress, not  _that_  way."

After a small peel of laughter erupted, the quizzical looks subsided and Rinoa let go of Squall to walk over a few paces and attempt climbing the rather tall barstool. With the seat nearly at chest-level, she gave it a good look to size up the logistics of it and, just as she was about to make that first step on the bottom rung after she put down the heels under it, a hand held her back.

"...Rinoa, maybe you shouldn't. You could get hurt trying to get back down." Quistis told her, stopping her completely. Turning around with a slightly sheepish look on her face, Rinoa's reply came fast.

"Yeah, you're probably right. I didn't think about that." she admitted. "Guess I could always lean on it instead."

"Hey, if it makes you feel any better Rin," Irvine began, "I don't any of us other than maybe yours truly could get down that thing without stumbling somehow."

Rinoa laughed a little. "You might be exaggerating a  _little_  there Irvine. If everyone was tipsy, borderline wasted, maybe you could say that then."

"Rinoa, I like your thinkin'. This could have the makings of a very interesting drinking game." he declared before turning slightly to Rinoa's left towards Zell once again. "100 Gil says you can't get on and down from that thing cleanly after downing three flutes."

"...Irvine, don't start this." Squall cut in. "None of us are cadets anymore."

"Yes, and that's why they're throwin' the party." the cowboy quipped. "C'mon Squall, let a little fun into your life. You're gonna send yourself to an early grave if you don't."

Squall crossed his arms. "...This isn't about me. It's about setting an example for the cadets around here."

"But isn't the motto of this school ' _work hard, play hard?'_  Seriously, it's not like I was tellin' Zell to try to aim for the pillar over there with throwing knives after drinking the three glasses. What's the harm if the worst he could do here is fall on his butt and make me a 100 Gil richer?"

"...Falling backwards into the barstool and ending up with a concussion." Squall said pointedly. "I'm not in the mood to drag anyone off to the infirmary for injuries stemming from stupidity."

"Squall has a point. But," Quistis began, disappearing for a moment towards a table behind them all, returning with a few champagne-filled flutes between her fingers shortly after, "-it doesn't mean that we still can't celebrate Irvine making SeeD and have _some_ fun."

After she gave Irvine, Selphie and Rinoa their flutes first, she made another trip to get one for herself, Zell and, for Squall, she gave him the biggest flute out of them all, slightly darker in colour and taller than the rest but without less in it to compensate; the commander wasn't sure if this was a non-verbal hint or not but he sure as hell wasn't going to draw attention to himself as Selphie led everyone in a toast as she raised her flute.

"I'll try to keep this super-short, not like the barstool Zell brought." she merrily chirped with an ear-to-ear grin, not failing to elicit a groan from Zell before she looked to the side where Irvine was. "Let's make a toast to Irvy who passed the SeeD exam with flying colours and to Rin, who we're lucky to have here to celebrate her birthday a day early! Cheers!"

The clinking of glasses all around echoed rather hauntingly in Squall's ears; he took a drawn out sip of his glass as everyone else chimed in with their congratulations and well wishes for the two.

"Soo..." Selphie began when the chatter died down a little, "...did you get any presents from anyone yet or am I gonna get to be the first one when we leave the ballroom?"

From across the circle, Rinoa shook her head after daintily taking a sip of her flute. "Actually, it'd be kinda hard since you're the only one who knows mine. Come to think about it...I don't know anyone's other than yours in the middle of July, Selph. Hm. I think we should fix that." She looked to her left. "Zell, what's yours?"

"Two weeks after yours, on the 17th." the blond told her candidly. "It'll be great this year since I'll finally be around to take part in the local celebration that happens to share the same day as my birthday."

"Neat. What kind of kind of celebration is it?"

With a bit of a grin, he answered, "The Balamb Fish celebration. You usually just drink beer with teal food colouring in it alongside a bit Balamb Fish to celebrate Balamb's beginnings as a harbour town. It's great."

"...Yeah, until you feel the hangover the next day from drinking beer all afternoon." Irvine quipped. Zell shot him a look.

"Oh yeah, I bet you're just jealous that your birthday doesn't land on something cool like the fish celebration."

Irvine shrugged. "November 24th ain't some kind of holiday but that's never stopped me from havin' a grand ole time just the same." he countered, looking at his left. "...Quisty?"

The blonde looked up. "Hm? Oh. October 4th."

From the middle of the circle, Quistis looked over at Rinoa to her left with a slight smirk and nod Squall noticed from the other side. He took another long-drawn sip only to realize he'd drained a bit more of the glass than he'd previously realized. By the time he moved his lips away from the rim and found his eyes drifting towards his right, he could see that Rinoa had stolen Quistis's previous expression.

"It's your turn now, Squall." she told him.

With a shrug, he replied, "...It's in a month that hasn't been mentioned."

"...Only March, July, October and November are gone. There's still a good three-quarters of them left." she pointed out. Then a thought seemingly struck Rinoa hard by the expression on her face. "Ok. Who's the oldest out of all you? Or are you all born the same year?"

"I'm the oldest." Quistis piped up. "As far as I know, everyone else should be a year younger. I'll be turning twenty this October."

After Zell, Selphie and Irvine confirmed that they were all turning nineteen later on, Rinoa pinned her sights solely on the commander.

"I'll assume you're going to turn nineteen too so... my first question is that I want to know if you're older than Zell."

When he shook his head, Zell gave him a quizzical look before telling him, "Weird. I always had you pegged for a winter birthday."

Squall casually took another sip. "...Shocking, I know." he dryly responded. Rinoa continued with her questioning.

"Are you older than Selph?"

Another shake of the head.

"Irvine?"

Finally, a nod.

"Okay. So that leaves...August and September if you say it's not a month that's been mentioned before." Rinoa deduced aloud. "Care to tell us which one then? I won't bother asking about the day since I'm guessing that the reason you're being so dodgy right now is because you don't want any of us organizing a surprise birthday party."

Without thinking much on it, Squall answered her straight. "August."

When a small peel of amazed gasps and looks filled the air, Squall couldn't help but feel annoyed that they were oh-so surprised that he'd answered her. What was the point? If it wasn't her, it would have been one of them prying it out of him. Her promise not to inquire further was enough to sweeten the deal to an acceptable proposition. Why is it such a shock that he took her up on that?

Regardless, the glass he was holding was more-or-less empty upon inspection, most likely the product of raising the glass to his lips far more frequently than he was registering in his mind, and so he wanted to walk around their loose circle to set it down on a nearby table for the servers to pick up. One step was all he got in before his balance went to hell and his mind went fuzzily abuzz.

By nothing short of a miracle, the commander managed to get close enough to a table so he could stretch out his hand to put down the glass without much notice. He narrowly missed but he was going to try not to linger on the near-fumble, focusing on walking around the circle slowly instead, trying not to draw attention to the fact he was feeling a little like a life-sized bobble-head figurine right now.

Of course, it'd be just his luck when Selphie saw to it that he would not be empty-handed and handed him another tall flute to replace the one he'd just finished. He could have tried refusing it but the point would have been futile, opting to hold on to it and wait for an opportune moment to dump part of the contents.

After he listened politely as everyone else conversed and laughed without much to add for several minutes, he saw an opportunity to go find a potted plant when the orchestra began another piece. Slowly, he turned towards the right, his back facing the circle.

Looking around his immediate area, there was nothing to be found in the way of potted plants, not even an empty flute on the tables nearby he could exchange his untouched one for. No, he thought, he was going to be stuck holding this and logic be damned furthermore, he took a sip and resigned, turning back around. There, his eyes settled on Rinoa though she was looking at Irvine who was still not finished retelling, not to mention partly embellishing, the tale of the mission Garden had given him for the SeeD exam.

As hard as he tried, Squall couldn't pretend to pay attention like the rest of them. His attention span was thoroughly shot and he had plenty of other things on his mind; none of which aimlessly standing here was going to help.

"...Feelin' that Galbadian champagne much?"

The commander gave him a slight look, shaking off his stupor. "What?"

The smug smirk Irvine had plastered on his face didn't sit well with Squall.

"The champagne Quistis and Selphie gave you," he began to clarify, "—I know it's Galbadian by the darker colour. If it's like anything I've had in the past, I reckon that it'll be twice as strong as the other stuff."

"...No, not really." Squall found himself lying with a shrug and taking the first sip, or maybe it was the second, of this new glass for good measure.

"Well, you're doing an awful lot of fidgetin' for someone who says otherwise." Irvine commented. "Meant no harm in askin' anyway. Wasn't trying to keep an eye you like Kadowaki was doing earlier with some of the junior classmen."

"I guess that would explain why Squall and I saw her and her aide cart two people into the infirmary with some major cuts and bruises even though Squall told me what she had said about not babysitting people." Rinoa interjected.

"There were two of them that managed to fall down the flight of stairs from the ballroom's upper level. Wasn't that surprised when I saw stretchers come out from behind the servers' tables not long after. Startin' to think Dr. K is just as bad as Mr. Commander over here when it comes to work though." Irvine teased. Said commander did not acknowledge the comment. "She was eying those junior cadets like a hawk all the while with that card key of hers sticking out like a sore thumb on a keychain attached to her purse. Shame the ol' gal couldn't let it go for one night. Reckon she could have used some fun."

"Yeah, Dr. Kadowaki probably could use a real day off." Rinoa agreed, turning towards Squall afterwards. "You're not going to pull a Dr. Kadowaki on us and leave, are you?"

Squall found himself shrugging at the not entirely explainable shift, trying to hide a slight and equally-inexplicable smirk threatening to tug at the corner of his lips. "Depends on how much you all annoy me."

"Oh, so that's how you're gonna be, huh. So how are we doing so far?"

"Failing miserably." he dryly answered, taking a sip of champagne.

"Gee, don't start drinking heavily on our account. We're not  _that_  bad." she joshed. Pausing for a moment was all it took for a warm grin to appear on her face as he lowered the glass. "Aww...I knew it. You're smiling. You love us all so much."

Squall rolled his eyes. "...You're mistaking me for yourself. Not going to work."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure I saw what Rinoa saw." Selphie chimed in. When Squall tossed her a look, a big smirk appeared on her face too. He didn't wait for what she was going to say next; it was clear enough already.

Not giving a damn about where he put his three-quarters full flute anymore, he took a few steps to put on the closest surface he could find and set it down. It did him in. He couldn't place why or how a few more sips or steps had made such a huge difference — he didn't have the capacity to consider many alternate reasons at the moment — but all he knew with certainty was that no good could possibly come out of staying without any regular chairs in sight.

"I...need to go. ...Head's spinning horribly now." he mumbled. "Sorry."

Nearly colliding with a dancing couple on the other edge of the dance floor the instant he turned around, it felt like proof enough that he'd made the right decision when he gave a muddled apology to the couple before moving on to the outer rim of the floor. Gravity conspiring against him all of a sudden, he kept his head down and attempted a not too slow or fast gait, trying not to draw too much attention to himself. Of course, the fact that his footsteps constantly alternated from leaden to light made the conscious effort feel for naught but he still plodded on.

Fortunately, luck seemed to favour him for a change and he made it to his dormitory without incident despite a few near missteps.

Sitting on the edge of his bed after walking across his single dorm room, Squall unceremoniously took off his boots and proceeded to take off the warm SeeD uniform. He got as far as taking off the jacket and placing it on the railing at the foot of the bed before he didn't bother to go any further, opting to leave the dress pants and thin, white and long-sleeved thermal shirt on and lying down on the mattress.

Staring at the ceiling, he let loose of a long sigh and a single thought.

 _...Would have been damned if I did, damned if I didn't. Can't win._

Figuring that he had no real alternatives at the moment, firmly cemented in this choice, Squall closed his eyes and rolled over to his side. Logic would have dictated that he should have had some water before attempting to fall asleep but he didn't care. Logic be damned and was utterly damned tonight as far as he was concerned.

Instead he just tried closing his eyes to try falling asleep straightaway. Tried being the key word.

Squall didn't know what time it was when he heard the knocking sometime after he'd closed his eyes and drifted into an uneasy semi-stupor, but truth be told, he'd be hard-pressed to really care about that particular detail as it was the  _who_  and  _why_  he was more concerned about.

Rolling over to face the edge of the bed, the clock on the other side of the wall told him that it was nearly midnight. Whoever it was at the door was blatantly breaking curfew rules so, short of the unlikely chance that the visitor's intent was to ask him to go to the training center to kill grats, Squall couldn't help but assume it was for an urgent Garden-related reason — something he was not particularly in the mood to deal with.

Even still, he got up all the same and strode over to the door, secretly glad that his head had stopped spinning some time ago. After fishing his card key out of his pocket, he swiped the card through the reader and the door opened.

The first thing Squall saw was not a Garden uniform of any kind, furthest thing from it. Furthest person he expected too.

"Surprised?" she commented with a slight smile in the relative darkness, now clad in a plain white t-shirt, some heather-grey track pants which were a bit too long for her and some matted-down black slippers — something he surmised she'd gotten from Quistis.

...And he really should have known better. Even still, this was as complicated as it was a relief to know it wasn't Garden-related.

"...This isn't a good idea Rinoa." he said in a low voice, stuffing his key card in his pocket. "We're not supposed to have cadets or guests of the opposite sex in our dorms, never mind the fact that you're already violating curfew."

Although the smile on her face sobered a fraction, it didn't seem like his words had much more of an effect on her. "Squall, I didn't see anyone in the hallway now and I'm not asking to stay for the night, only a few minutes."

Though Squall knew that this, whatever this was going to be, couldn't possibly be a few minutes, he still found himself extending a hand to her. Once she took it, it wasn't long before the door closed and he led her to the small table he had in the main area so she could sit on the chair there. She did not sit, however.

"Squall, let's just sit on your bed. It'll be easier if you have a place to sit too."

"I'm fine with standing." he told her. "The dizzy spells have long gone."

"The chair here is low so...it'd be kinda awkward if you're looking down on me with that much of a difference. If you stand, I'll stand. Fair?"

"As long as you're not purposely putting weight on your foot...it's fine." When she nodded and leaned into the table for support, Squall knew there would be no more stalling over trivial matters. "...Why are you here?"

"Because I want to know if you're ok." she answered truthfully. "You left the ballroom with basically no warning."

"I was fine until I took a step to put down the second flute. I don't know why it hit me like that so quickly, it just...did."

"I figured you weren't lying about that but...it kinda sounded like an excuse in a way. You were acting a bit odd before."

Squall paused for a good couple of seconds, holding the words on his tongue for a fleeting moment before knowing that they couldn't stay there any longer. "...No good could have come from staying there." he said, repeating his very thoughts from hours ago.

"No good?" she repeated, "Squall, you were nowhere close to sloppy drunk, maybe just a little tipsy because you had that one flute of strong champagne really fast. Either way, it's not like you were out of control or yelling at people. You were maybe a bit too serious about the chair thing, but it's understandable. Even still, it really wasn't as fun without you."

"No, it wouldn't have been." Squall maintained. "I was not in the right frame of mind when we got there. I'm...not like you, I don't have your resilience. It would have only gotten worse if I were there."

A sympathetic look emerged on Rinoa's face. "Squall, I'm no better than you. I don't have resilience; it's only damage control for the sticky situations I put myself in or the ones I just happen to be in. After you left, everyone looked at me and asked if I knew what  _'that was all about.'_  I have no idea how I answered that straight without saying how worried I was. It's one of the reasons why I couldn't come here earlier; I had to wait until the ball was done and until the coast was clear from Quistis's room on the other side of the hallway to try and talk to you."

"Rinoa, you won't have a way back to her dorm short of knocking at her door to let you in. I don't have the master card key to open it. Does Quistis know you're here?"

"She does." Rinoa answered. "I was going to go earlier but she told me to wait because of possible stragglers around eleven, eleven-thirty. She's worried about you too."

"Does she...?"

"—No. I didn't tell her about what happened in the infirmary other than you helping bandage up my foot. The rest is something I know should only be between the two of us. I just asked her if everything was ok with you at Garden with all this work on your plate."

"And?"

He could see a small yet typical Rinoa-esque smile creep into her features. "She said it's the same old, same old. You're a bit grouchy and unsociable at times but it's nothing new and nothing she can't relate to herself considering the workload."

For the first time in what felt like quite some time this evening, Squall smirked, if only for a minute fraction. "...She's being polite. I've been nothing short of a nightmare to work with."

"...Oh really?" Rinoa leaned closer, now sporting an inquisitive look to accompany the smile. "Mind sharing why?"

He shrugged. "Just the workload, people and the goddamn Galbadian bullshit I'm up to my eyeballs in. I'm starting to think it's a miracle I haven't murdered anyone yet."

"Well, don't let me be the first victim, ok?" she joshed with a hint of a nervous chuckle, leaning back a little, "I didn't sign up to leave in a body bag here."

Squall shrugged again. "If you say so..."

"I  _do_ say so."

After she reiterated his words, Rinoa stood up straight and used her left hand on the table as support as she hobbled around its edges to get to his side. Less than a couple of inches away, she looked up at him and, without any notice, looped her hands through his arms and around his torso, hugging him tightly. It was confusing.

"...Is this supposed to be incentive...not to kill you?"

"I suppose it could be." she answered into his shirt, her breath warming the fabric and tickling his neck slightly. "Now will you please hug me back?"

Despite the simplicity of the request, Squall couldn't bring himself to wrap his arms anywhere as tightly as she had hers around his torso. It didn't go unnoticed for long, causing Rinoa's expression to turn pensive.

"So...I guess that was probably not the best thing to ask after everything tonight?"

"...A little."

She let go and let her hands hang languidly at her sides. When he followed suit, they stood, not eye to eye but without much space in between them.

Without much thought, Squall found himself asking, "What you said earlier in the infirmary...was it only damage control?"

From this close, it seemed like it was impossible for her to bite back her frown. "...It's kind of obvious Squall." she told him sombrely. "I don't think there's anyone who could laugh off something like that, change the subject and be sincere about it all."

"There's time to talk about it now."

"Sure, there's time, but what is there to say?" she rhetorically asked, raising her hands in defeat, "I'd be only telling you what you probably could figure out from my actions earlier tonight. I kissed you in a weak moment after months and months of being at a virtual stand-still and constantly wondering where we stood, scared the crap out of you and apologized for putting you in an unfair situation. There. Was that anything new to you?"

"The part about being at a stand-still."

"Squall...it can't be news to you, it just can't. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy seeing you come and visit no matter the reason but it's been all business with the Owls after Ultimecia. And whenever it's not, we're with the gang. It's never you and I alone together, going forward."

"Things needed to settle first Rinoa." he quietly told her. "As time-consuming as it was, it had to be done. The world was in a state of confusion right after we came back from the remnants of Ultimecia's control of Galbadia using Edea and the events in Esthar. It had to be monitored in those first few months and-"

"-I get that Squall, I really do, but not even a day after you got caught kissing me under the balcony in that first week I stuck around Garden before going back to Timber, it seemed like someone turned a switch off in your head, long before having to act with Garden as the world's guardian. And not in a,  _'whoa, all that crazy business is done so I'm going to take break and clear my head_ ' kind of way, but...I don't know. I just can't explain it properly. It's like...not having something so much bigger to worry about anymore hit you hard because it put things in perspective when it stopped casting that big shadow over everything else."

She was half-right.

The day after the celebration party, Cid had asked to meet with him for a couple of minutes. Squall had assumed it had to do with a new assignment but he was wrong.

He had told him that the world was going to be in a state of confusion while everyone picked up the pieces of what just happened, that they'd need a stable figurehead to help guide the way. Once again, Squall was saddled with something he didn't sign up for, scoffing at the very idea. He didn't think he was a hero, he was just someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, doing what simply had to be done albeit reluctantly. But just like the other times, Squall didn't fight the headmaster on the subject.

Then out of nowhere, Cid placed a hand on his shoulder, looked him in the eye and told him,

' _The appearance of stability will be paramount in the coming months. Making decisions carrying excessive risk would be best left in the past. Most do not understand the concept of the bond and it would not be wise to give those who will undoubtedly carry the scars of these recent events further reason to persecute the innocent. Understood?'_

"...Squall?"

"Hm?"

"You went into think-mode. Mind sharing?"

"It doesn't have anything to do with what you were talking about."

"I don't mind that it doesn't Squall." she told him. "I just want to know."

Squall paused for a long, hard moment, dipping his head slightly. "In the infirmary...it scared me that I let it go as far as it had without so much as a thought or half a mind to stop it."

"Why?"

"I...don't know."

Rinoa let out a bittersweet chuckle. "So I don't know why I started that and you don't know why you stopped, huh? Seems like we make a great team." she tried to josh. When a couple of seconds passed in silence, she reached out to him and placed a hand squarely on his shoulder. "...If this is something you want, you shouldn't feel ashamed or nervous about it."

Raising herself by the tip-toes of her one foot using the hand she had on his shoulder for stability, she softly kissed him on the forehead.

"...I should probably go now." she softly told him afterwards. "It's getting late and Quistis is probably still waiting up for me."

With that, she went around him slowly and headed towards the door.

"Wait..."

Rinoa turned around at the sound of his voice; she looked like she was holding her breath.

"...I'll help you get there."

-—-

"... _Squall?_ " He stopped aimlessly staring at the ceiling and sat up to look at Quistis who was now standing by the dividing window to his right. "She was able to give a fairly detailed description of the shooter. I'll run it by G-Garden's database and cross-reference it with hospitals within the estimated search radius."

After she strode out of the room, Squall let his head hit the pillow once more, feeling strangely ok with the stinging the action caused.

 _Finally,_  he thought to himself,  _movement in the right direction._


	11. Push

_("Remaining static, complacent...it feels like defeat.")_

-—-

Friday, July 9th (Afternoon, Day 2)

"...I don't need the help."

Dr. Kadowaki gave Squall a large smirk as she loosely tied the top knot on the back of his gown, having just added water-proof coverings to both his dressings. "I figured you'd say as much but I thought I'd ask since Addison was going to be here anyway. Very well then. I'll be a few moments preparing everything. I'll let you know when it's ready."

Before he could even nod, Dr. Kadowaki turned around and disappeared into the other half of the infirmary and beyond his sight from the vantage point he had by lying down on his bed. Unwittingly rubbing the side of his face with his left hand, the waxen feel of his skin and oily residue from an errant tendril of hair made him stop right then and there.

It had been a few days since he'd had been able to take a shower. Although it wasn't like he was completely unpresentable, it was enough to drive Squall, a creature of habit and taker of daily showers, insane. Luckily for him, the doctor was of similar mind and two steps ahead.

So here he was, waiting for things to be done so he could remove all this grime and do something other than lying in bed, effectively achieving nothing of note, for a change. Sadly, the inability to accomplish anything seemed to be becoming a pattern, it seemed. Or at least to him it did.

The detailed description Rinoa gave Quistis netted the latter nothing in her search. They'd complied all of the pictures from the matches they'd found for a man in his mid-to-possibly-late-twenties, standing much taller than the commander — making him well over six feet at the very least — with blond hair, lighter-coloured eyes — light blue, maybe grey — thin lips and a narrow nose in both B and G-Garden's various logs, including those detailing the outside labour hired for Trabia's reconstruction for good measure, and the patients admitted in Timber and Balamb hospitals in the past 48 hours for suspicious wounds for Rinoa to look at.

As she'd pored through the pictures displayed on the laptop without so much of a peep, not even the faintest flicker of emotion registering on her face, it became obvious fairly fast that they'd hit a dead end. When Rinoa had suggested that perhaps she had been wrong about the age and asked that Quistis try running another search with a lower age bracket, it only achieved to magnify this fact even more so, proving to be just as fruitless the second time around. To add insult to injury, Seifer's name had somehow made it in from Balamb's log. Rinoa awkwardly tried to lighten the mood by half-heartedly, not to mention painfully, joking that maybe the ex-knight had a long-lost brother who was, quote-unquote, "out for blood or something."

It was at that nadir when they knew they'd truly hit a roadblock.

Sliding over to the left side of the bed, Squall began the methodical steps to get into the wheelchair. This consisted of the commander leaning heavily on his left side, keeping the movements slow and controlled with the aid of his abdominal muscles, and biting back the vulgarities on his tongue from the nuisances which the trying process inevitably arose.

Once Squall began to wheel himself over to the foot of the bed, it felt as though there was added resistance to even get as far as that. Though he always had to manually drag himself forward with his left foot in the wheelchair, his movements this time around felt more laboured and brusque. What little mobility his affected side could offer as aide was now lost. Before, he didn't want to risk aggravating the wounds despite the limited motion his right side could have potentially contributed. Now, he was starting to reconsider how lightly he'd used the term ' _dead weight_ ' before.

He took a slight breath and propelled himself around the bed with two fast and jerky manoeuvres, relieved that his knees had not collided with Dr. Kadowaki's desk because of the wide arc. Not falling out of the wheelchair was also a good thing too.

As a small sigh died on his lips, he looked down at his right hand languidly resting on the wheelchair's arm with contempt.

"Everything is ready now."

Squall's head suddenly jerked upward to lock eyes with the doctor. "Ok."

The commander carefully wheeled himself forward with a particularly-calculated effort to maintain the full control which had eluded him earlier to avoid piquing the doctor's interest, not to mention bringing about the possibility of her changing her mind on allowing him to wash up without help; he damn-well made sure that his steps carried enough force and weight not to move at an Adamantoise's pace but restrained enough in speed to be able to make a controlled turn.

Right after he passed through the opened door, Dr. Kadowaki did not remain at the side of it, entering in the room right behind him. She grabbed the towel from the corner of the bathtub and handed it to him.

"I've filled two buckets of warm water inside the tub; the red bucket has soapy water in it for washing and the blue one is just regular water for rinsing everything off. The sponges and shampoo are nearby those. Don't worry about the door if you can't nudge it closed; there won't be enough water dripping from the sponges to get outside the bathtub. Just make sure you don't get your sutures wet and if you have any problems, don't hesitate to yell."

After half-heartedly nodding, she left him alone so he could inspect the accessible tub in solitude.

Three-quarters the size of a regular tub nestled in the far left corner of the bathroom, the two open sides were encased with a semi-opaque plastic curtain overtop with a slit in the middle of where the door was; it ran up three-quarters of the curtain length and lined with snaps on either side of it, making it a closable flap of sorts. Needless to say, the flap was left open at the moment.

Once he wheeled himself to the open space left by the open tub door, Squall could see the buckets left for him and the seat affixed to the end opposite of the showerhead. His eye couldn't help but notice the individual liquid soap and shampoo dispensers mounted mid-way up the wall or the additional cloths atop of them and the handrails flanking either side, however.

Without much further thought, Squall hung the towel on the section of ledge on the right, nudging the door shut with his left foot. He then proceeded to lean heavily on his left side to reach through the slit and grab the lip of the red bucket with his left hand, angling it downward to make its contents freely spill out and cascade around the tub's bottom. After taking the bucket out after it was thoroughly emptied, he repeated the same process for the blue bucket and effectively undid everything Dr. Kadowaki had prepared.

Soon after he made quick work of the knots holding sides of the gown together, Squall let the sleeves slide down his arms and the gown pooled into his lap. Placing it by the towel, the commander locked the brakes on the wheelchair and planted his good foot down inside the tub itself, keeping a low center of gravity so he could rely more on his left leg's muscles for stability to reduce the possible damage in the event of a fall. The plan worked without fail and he was able to latch onto handrail without incident, pulling himself up to full height slowly.

Though Squall conceded that nothing could have been done about the door, the amount of water bound to leak over the tub's bottom lip without being caught by the shower curtains was negligible and he couldn't care less over what could easily be mopped up with the towel he had. Shifting his body around enough for his back to face the wall and to willingly let the closest handrail bar to the showerhead dig into it in exchange for further stability, Squall reached for the shower knob and gave it a twist leftward.

As the cold, misty spray hit Squall's face and most of his torso with an icy tingle, irrational sense of pride flooded through him. He knew this endeavour was asinine on multiple levels and that he'd probably get shit for it later with the likelihood of loud echoes giving away what he'd done because of the lack of carpeting, but damn it all, it was as necessary as it was unnecessary.

All he needed to do was look at his lifeless right arm to know that it was.

Breaking out of his reverie as the water warmed up some a half-minute later, Squall kept his left forearm and elbow flush to get out of the leaning position he'd put himself in. Once he was back at full height, he grabbed onto the left handrail for a moment to fully steady himself before moving on to cupping his hand below the button for the shampoo dispenser and pressing it with palm.

As he lathered up his hair with the same hand, he retained his stability without much trouble for the most part and repeated the process for the cloth he covered in liquid soap and scrubbed as much skin as he could reach to the best of his ability shortly after. Once the last of the suds disappeared into the drain, Squall didn't bother to lean against the wall as a precaution and opted to drop the cloth and reach for the knob standing up this time.

With the din of the spray gone and nothing further to do other than get out and dry off, the commander couldn't help but succumb to the need to close his eyes and grasp the last few remaining moments of this peaceful seclusion as the rest of the droplets freely meandered down his body.

But it all just slipped through his fingers the moment he tried to grab hold of it.

Opening his eyes not even a minute later, he realized that the effort seemed futile. He was never one to do well with time to silently reflect anyway; the stillness of any given room never failed to provoke the darker recesses of his mind to procure unwanted thoughts that din and menial tasks expertly kept at bay. So why would that change now?

In this silence, all he could think of was Rinoa.

He thought of how he'd effectively caged her here with no resolution looming on the horizon promising to set her free and back home to Timber any time soon with all these dead-ends cropping up. He thought about how part of him was kind of glad she'd be near him for a longer period of time though the other part of him was disgusted by the very thought of taking any kind of delight in such an circumstance, scared of it even. He thought about how she was hurting and he couldn't do fuck-all without jeopardizing her recovery. He just…thought about a lot of things, things strung together with a thread of guilt.

Squall was almost too busy thinking of her to notice her muffled cries coming from the other side of the door.

But he did hear her in the end.

He'd heard her because he the instant that stabbing sensation came back in full force once more and he felt like his insides were being hacked to bits, he'd lost his balance after accidentally putting weight on his wounded leg. The last-ditch effort to grab one of the handrails lessened the impact but it didn't change the end result.

He'd fallen with a loud clatter and it wasn't long before he could see blood saturating both dressings amid the slowly-subsiding pain, eventually leaking through the gaps in the tape holding the waterproof covers altogether.

As he was stripped of all dignity when Dr. Kadowaki came into the bathroom to pick him up, hastily clean the wounds and shoot him dirty looks, he could hear her sobs of pain as clear as day through the split second the bathroom door was open.

… _This has got to be related to her,_  he hazily thought, _it just has to. But what does it mean? Why hasn't it happened until now? Are we dying?_


	12. Speak

_("The proof is there…it just needs to be said aloud.")_

-—-

Friday, July 9th (Late Afternoon, Day 2)

As he was lying on a stretcher with the folded towel strategically placed atop his hips for modesty, it wasn't long after the smell of anti-sceptic hit Squall's nostrils when he felt the pinpricks of the suture needle threading his split flesh back together.

I don't know what _in-_ " Stitch. " _-Hy_ ne's name possessed you t _o-_ " Stitch. " _-at_ tempt such a foolhardy endeavour with your current mobility issues, but from now on, I am  _not_  granting you any more favours, yo _u-_ " Stitch. " _-h_ ear me? After this is done, you're confined to bedrest until further notice. One legitimately-ailing person is enough without your antics piling on the work."

…Not to mention the ones from Dr. Kadowaki's barbs.

He figured silence would be the best option to avoid incensing her further.

When the task was done for both wounds, the doctor wasted no time in asking, "Before you fell, how much movement could you manage with your right arm?"

"…Next to nothing."

"So is that why the door was open or did it just not occur to you to close it when you attempted this?"

Ignoring the jab, Squall uttered a monosyllabic, "Yes."

"Does it feel like your right leg's worsened in the same way?"

"No. I haven't noticed much difference there."

"Mm."

When she left it at that, the commander kept silent. The reasoning for his silence was immediately justified when the doctor began to manually dress him as if he was a life-size ragdoll; there was absolutely no point in asking a question with an already-apparent answer.

With his gown back on and properly tied again, Dr. Kadowaki pushed his stretcher towards the bathroom's door. As she wheeled him to his bed, he took note of the silence the stretcher wheels were effectively piercing with their squeaky whine and that her room's curtains were drawn. Once the doctor had rounded the corner and into the other half of the room, making the stretcher flush with the left side of the bed, his eyes drifted towards the window divider as he slowly inched backwards with a bit of the doctor's help, only to be rewarded with the sight of the opaque tinting.

When he slowly lowered himself to lie down on the bed, a shot of sympathy raced across Dr. Kadowaki's features. "Try to rest for as long as you can. If you have trouble falling asleep, I can arrange for a sleep spell to help."

"No need. I can do it myself." he told her. As good as his word, he muttered the necessary words under his breath and his eyelids slowly closed on their own accord. There truly was no point of being awake right now — there wouldn't be any answers to any of his questions until later…

-—-

It had been an uneasy several hours' worth of sleep but it was to be expected; Squall wasn't usually one to have dreamful sleep, the only instances occurring during spell-induced slumber. This was no exception. Though he couldn't remember the exact details of the dream, he definitely remembered being tethered in place by invisible straps and fighting for air in it as he woke up in a cold sweat, thoroughly drained.

After bringing back the pace of his breathing back to normal, Squall raised his left hand to rub his eyes and adjust them to the newfound lack of light. With the beams of moonlight softly shining through the windows behind him when he moved his hand and his eyes began to refocus, he figured that it had to be approaching night time though the exact hour was still anyone's guess.

"…Glad to see you're finally up Squall. It's just us right now."

He hadn't expected Rinoa to be that  _'anyone,'_  however. Not by a long shot.

"… _Where are the others?_ " he found himself feebly asking, his eyes temporarily flickering between the IV stand her right hand was currently connected to and his right hand that was currently being stroked by her left. Fortunately, it didn't seem like she'd noticed.

"It's after-hours now so Addison's gone for the night. Dr. Kadowaki's just out to get some coffee right now; she'll be back in a few minutes or so."

"…Hm."

She gave him a warm but weak smile. "So I bet you're wondering why I was being a creeper and watching you sleep."

"It wouldn't be the first time so no, not really. I'm already fully aware of your perverse habits." he dryly commented, earning a comically-raised eyebrow from her. "I'd rather know why you're not bedridden anymore, which is what I assume you were getting at in the first place."

"Fine, be that way and not indulge my silliness." she light-heartedly chided, her smile widening ever so subtly. "Dr. Kadowaki, she decided that it wasn't a good idea to let me keep on tearing my stitches like this so she had Addison use a Curaga to mend all the surrounding tissue. They're still going to do check-ups and tests every so often just to make sure I'm ok though."

Moving her hand off his and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she added, "Of course, I still feel like crap but…it's kinda nice to have a teeny bit of energy and be able to walk around a bit."

"I'm glad." Squall replied. Despite the brevity of the sentiment and lack of allusions towards their newfound swapped positions, the comment caused the upward pull of the corners of her mouth to dull a little, however.

"You…actually fell this time, didn't you?" she asked.

"I grabbed the handrail in time to lessen the impact but both sets of stitches still opened up." Squall raised his left hand to show her the long scrape on his palm. Once the commander lowered it, he asked, "Were you sick when I was in the washroom?"

"Yeah, it's why I had to get my stomach cured — I, they didn't want me to keep on tearing out my stitches whenever I threw up. At least this time, it wasn't  _blue_." Rinoa suddenly stopped talking for second to shake her head. "But…don't change the subject. Are you ok?"

"As well as can be." he honestly answered. "But…I think I felt some of your pain all of a sudden and that's what caused me to fall."

Unsurprisingly enough, Rinoa looked at him quizzically.

"Just…hear me out. When it was happening, did it feel like stabbing pain?"

"Yes…" she solemnly replied. "Yes, it did. Hurt like hell too."

"Was there any reason why the pain went away shortly after, before the Curaga spell Addison performed?"

The moment she looked away, he knew something was up. "It hurt so much that I…suddenly didn't care about Dr. Kadowaki's plan for us and I used a Cure spell on myself to take the edge off." she began. Slowly but surely, she made eye contact with him once more. Biting her lip, she reluctantly added, "I don't know how but…the Cure felt like a Curaga. The pain went away completely and…I'm sorry for lying to you earlier."

He looked at her curiously. "I don't understand…what did you lie about?"

"About them deciding to cure me because I kept on tearing the stitches out. They…only did it because the damage was already done from what I did." she explained. "Dr. Kadowaki must have been as mad at me as she was at you when Addison told her what happened, even if she didn't say anything to my face. You know how she can just…express stuff with her eyes?"

Squall nodded; he knew the feeling all too well. "She's used to dealing with cadets and SeeDs who grit through the pain and listen to her orders without question. …We're not exactly the norm here."

"I'll say." Rinoa concurred with a slight chuckle in her lilt before turning serious again. "So…you think my powers had something to do with this?"

"I don't know for sure, but it'd make sense. A knight absorbing a sorceress's pain to protect her doesn't sound too impossible."

"But…the pain was tolerable and I basically threw up spit and some stomach acid. It only really hurt when I tore my stitches again from bending too far, too fast and I'm sure you would have said something before when it happened the first time." Rinoa froze for a second. "…What if you're feeling all of this because of something else? Or…what if I…what if I might be throwing up for a completely-unrelated reason?"

"Rinoa, you know it can't be  _that_." he reflexively answered. "And I  _did_ feel this the first time you tore your stitches; I just didn't know what it was at the time. And if it was even possible, Dr. Kadowaki would have known from the start if you were. It's standard protocol to test samples for those specific hormones whenever a female cadet is admitted here. I'd assume she'd still do the same for you too."

Rinoa blinked.

"Um…I didn't mean  _that_ , since well, I did remember what the texts said, but I guess that's a relief to know there's a pattern to this. Now I have to ask though…why does she run that kind of test without saying, well, anything?"

"Because tests never lie, unlike people." he curtly stated, calmly trying to overlook his initial gaffe. "It…doesn't happen often, but it happens more often than you'd think. As Commander, I somehow got saddled with the dubious honour of confronting the female cadets who test positive since Garden still hasn't gotten around to replacing the old disciplinary committee."

"Oh…I see. Do you have to kick them out of Garden if it happens?"

"Cadets, yes, without a question; while there's a rule on sexual promiscuity, there's an unspoken rule about recklessly conceiving, regardless if the cadet had only been in very few relationships. With SeeDs…I punish as I see fit although it is not my choice as to what they do with the unborn child. Should they stay in Garden and keep the child, the mother is relegated to administrative duties indefinitely."

"So…not a wise career move, huh?"

He shrugged. "No, it wouldn't be. Then again, the average life expectancy of a SeeD is 22 so who am I to say what's a wise move?"

"True…" she quietly agreed, "Still, it must be really hard to have to break that kind of news to those girls."

Choosing to rub his eyes at precisely this moment, he simply uttered, "…You've  _no_  idea."

Within that very instant the words left his lips, he could remember that first time nearly two years ago in October with vivid clarity…

-—-

 _Without rhyme or reason, Dr. Kadowaki thrust a file into his hands not even two seconds after he'd walked into the infirmary after being summoned there. He looked down at it._

" _This is a medical file." he said pointedly. "What does this have to do with me?"_

" _Something I need you to handle. Read the first printout in the file."_

 _Opening the manila folder, he glanced over the first page as instructed and looked up at her. "All it's telling me is that she's pregnant. This is under the disciplinary committee's jurisdiction, not mine."_

" _Unfortunately, it's under yours for the time being. Garden hasn't had enough time to search for new members to replace the three vacated posts with so many more pressing matters currently at hand."_

"… _Fine. What is the exact procedure you want me to follow then?"_

" _Just inform the cadet in question that Garden is aware of the pregnancy and it's grounds for dismissal from the SeeD program. You'll need to recite the related regulations as well."_

"… _So am I to do the same for the would-be father as well?"_

" _Unfortunately, thanks to your…predecessor's predilection for taking matters in his own hands regardless of protocol, we are no longer able to dismiss the would-be-fathers without concrete DNA evidence after a few vengeful ex-cadets sued and won. All you can do is cite them with a general misconduct charge to punish them and toss in some remedial health lessons if paternal testing can't be done. There is different protocol at SeeD-level, but I won't get into that now._

" _Regardless of all that, you'll generally see one of two cases — either the cadet knew of it beforehand and tried hiding it to avoid detection, or the blood test will pick up on the pregnancy before they do, usually anytime three weeks post-intercourse. It goes without saying that the latter case is far messier to deal with."_

 _Squall furrowed his brows. "Why would that make a difference? Both cases lead to the same result."_

 _Dr. Kadowaki smugly grinned. "Oh ho, you've never had the pleasure of experiencing two major life events happening at once then. Well, you'll learn fast. Cadet Vale is the latter case and she's due in your office in half an hour. Good luck."_

 _As she handed him the dismissal notice meant for the 16 year-old cadet — it needed his signature —into his hands and sent him on his way, little did he know that it'd truly be the messiest thing he'd have to do since he had dismembered a Malboro for its tentacles._

 _When he laid out the situation in front of the cadet after she'd come up to his office, she instantly began to blubber and plead with him to reconsider, stating that it had been the only time she'd been careless with her boyfriend. No matter how many times and how politely he reiterated that the rules were non-negotiable, she would not listen, opting to cry and speak garbled words._

 _In the end, Squall couldn't take it any longer and left the room altogether, handing her the signed dismissal papers in his wake._

 _She hadn't even budged an inch from her chair._

-—-

"So…" Rinoa began, attempting to get back on topic, "...did you tell Dr. Kadowaki about your stomach pains at any point?"

"No. I wanted to talk to you first to see if there was anything coincidental about the timing."

A frown reappeared on her face. "You should tell her soon Squall. Whether or not I have anything to do with this, I think it's better to play it safe and make sure everyone's on the same page."

"I don't see the point in telling her something that could be explained away by your magic. …I'll look into this further with Cid to make sure this sort of thing is possible and then I'll relay that information back to Dr. Kadowaki after."

"Well, you might just have to tell her what you're guessing is going on with us still. From what I overheard, I don't think she'll let you leave the infirmary without a good reason. Besides, while you were asleep, she said something to Addison about putting all the wheelchairs and crutches in the locked storage room so you wouldn't be able to escape."

"…Liken me to a criminal in detention, why don't they." he grumbled, eliciting a giggle from the sorceress.

"Hey, you earned the prison sentence, Leonhart." she joshed, prodding his arm at the same time for added emphasis.

"If they didn't want me to attempt that, they should have dismantled the handrails."

Rinoa rolled her eyes as she moved closer. "Ugh, you're incorrigible. I hope they make you do hard time so you'll actually  _learn_  something from it."

Before he could even come up with a subsequent retort, she leaned over to softly kiss him on the forehead and chose to immediately leave after that, presumably so she'd have the last word. Squall also theorized that it was also possible that she had purposely left then to be able to eerily sync the sound of her ruffling her bed's sheets with that of the infirmary door hissing open.

Either were solid hypotheses, he thought.

Unsurprisingly enough, Dr. Kadowaki's figure passed by shortly after the door hissing and she stopped on a dime once she noticed his eyelids weren't closed.

"…I didn't miss anything, did I?" she asked, setting down her coffee mug on the desk. Luckily for Squall, he was pretty sure the third person in the room wouldn't be able to hear them from where she was so long as he was quieter than he had been with Xu.

"My right arm is completely numb now. It wasn't before I went to sleep." he deadpanned. The look on Dr. Kadowaki's face soured.

"This is not good." she mumbled, walking closer to his affected side. "Have you felt spreading numbness around your thigh wound as well?"

Squall shook his head as she stopped to look at his arm. "No, it seems to be the same as before."

There was a pause.

"I wonder...what was the order of shooting?"

"Shoulder, thigh and then Rinoa's abdomen." Skeptically looking at the doctor, Squall asked, "Would the order hold any significance?"

"It might." she replied. "If I were to make an educated assumption, taking in the locations of the wounds, the toxin's potency seemed to decrease with each shot taken, judging by the patterns I've noticed with the both of you. Of course there would have to be something particular about the gun for that to happen. Even then, there could be a chance that this is mere coincidence."

"…It might suggest that the gun overheated after the first round was fired, stripping away some of layers of toxin of the remaining bullets before they left the chamber." he offered. "Pulse rounds tend to do that with the gunblade models I've handled, but the different firing mechanisms might not produce the same patterns. Someone would have to talk to Irvine to know for sure...my mind's in a fog right now."

"It's already after-hours for visitors, but it's safe to say that an exception to the rule is necessary here. I'm sure you're aware that he's scheduled to leave for Galbadia early morning tomorrow."

Though he had not known about the sharpshooter's mission, Squall nodded, leaving aside what he and Rinoa talked about earlier for now.

One thing at a time would be best, he figured. At least he could pretend to have some semblance of control then.


	13. Cope

_("You just can't choose which defense mechanism you cling to. Nobody can.")_

-—-

Friday, July 9th (Night, Day 2)

It wasn't even ten minutes after Squall and Dr. Kadowaki had discussed summoning the sharpshooter for consultative matters that he was already face-to-face with the commander, the cowboy's promptness and the solemn look on his face upon arrival speaking volumes even with the latter indication instantly fading upon eye contact with him.

"Hey Squall and Dr. K," he greeted with a small wave to the both of them, "So what was it you needed to ask me in person? I'm guessin' it has to do with ammo."

Without wasting a second, Squall answered.

"We need to know if there is a possibility that Pulse ammo can be gradually stripped of the outer layer of toxin with each shot from overheating in the chambers. I know it does with gunblades, but I'm not completely sure if the same assumption holds for regular handguns."

Irvine grimaced. "It is, but only if the bastard nicked the stuff and didn't know a thing about the way Pulse ammo works in regular guns because it's not the same mechanics as regular ammo; any half-decent ammo dealer wouldn't have sold him anything that'd overheat this badly. It's supposed to work this way with gunblades since it's actually better to melt off as much of the outer layer as you can on purpose to coat the blade, but handguns? …Not so much."

The commander sighed. "Wonderful. I was bested by a complete idiot and interrogating local weapons' shops is probably out of the picture now."

"Well, that settles that." Dr. Kadowaki quickly interjected, focusing on Irvine. "Thank you for coming on short notice Irvine."

"Not a problem."

"Now if you'll excuse me," she said, purposely looking at Squall as she uttered the words, "I have some extensive cleaning that I need to finish up."

When she left and the hiss of the nearby door indicated that she was indeed in the bathroom, Irvine shot him a slightly confused look.

"Care to share what that was all about? Or do I not want to know?"

"It's…not that exciting. I tore my stitches this afternoon and it made a small mess. The same thing happened to Rinoa in her room so I'd assume she's not thrilled on that account."

"Ah, makes sense. Guess she'd have to go bleach-crazy for something like that."

The room went silent for a long, awkward moment.

"So…what's up with you two?"

"…I'm not talking about my personal life, Irvine."

The sharpshooter's face split into a smirk. "Oh come on, like I'd have to ask about that. It's  _obvious_  you two are going at it like rabbits after years of nothing since you two  _were_  shot in the same place on a main street in Balamb after all. With all your clothes on, I might add." he sarcastically joshed with a wink for good measure, his smirk sobering shortly after. "I meant health-wise. Is it any better now?"

"Still wouldn't know. This bit of news helps, but it's still only been a day." Squall curtly answered. "They cured Rinoa instead of putting in more stitches so at least she can walk around a bit."

"That's good. And you?"

"Same as before." he coolly lied. "They opted not to do the same for me since I can still get around with them. Couldn't avoid it in Rinoa's case since it was her stomach."

"I see. Well, I hope you get better. Garden's really become a mess trying to cover this up and run the investigation and," And then it finally came out. "Selph's been worrying herself sick the past couple days already so I'm kinda concerned about that since…well, it's really not like her."

"It's not up to me Irvine." the commander reminded him. "I wish it were."

"I know it's not but I'd better see you two still sticking around when I come back next week for Selph's birthday party, you hear me? She's making a big announcement then and I'm sure she'd like to tell  _all_  her friends."

In a very rare instance, Squall's brain had forgone all mental filters as he simply but quietly blurted, " _…Is she pregnant again?_ "

The cowboy's smirk returned, warmer than before, as he shook his head. "No, it's something else. Besides, even if it was that, Selphie would kill me for not letting her say it first."

Despite his response, Squall couldn't help but feel as though the sharpshooter's grin betrayed his words. Even still, he let it go and didn't question him — just like the first time over a year ago, a memory which his and Rinoa's earlier conversation had caused him to recall though he made sure that it remained untold out of respect.

-—-

Monday, April 13th (Late Afternoon, One Year Ago)

 _There was only a mere second's difference between the time Squall had registered their entrance into his office and when he had subsequently registered that something was terribly off with Irvine and Selphie, especially the latter as she looked unnaturally still. While it wasn't uncommon for either of them to barge into his office unannounced, it was to have them both do so in unison. When they sat themselves down in the chairs in front of his desk, he just knew something was up; they normally stood._

 _Setting down the document he had in his hands, Squall dully asked the pair, "And the reason why you're both here is…?"_

 _Unfortunately, both decided answer at the same time so it sounded like, "_ Sel _impreg_ phie _nantSq_ needs _all_ help. _"_

"… _You're going to have to repeat that. One at a time." the commander told them, pinching the bridge of his nose as he sensed a headache coming on._

 _Irvine and Selphie looked at one another for a second, exchanging one long glance before Selphie faced Squall once more._

 _Biting her lip, she calmly said, "We need your help. Nobody knows it yet but," She looked towards Irvine again, "I'm pregnant."_

 _He took a moment to let the statement sink in. "I _…_ don't  _ _quite__ understand why you're asking me for help."_

" _I know it sounds weird, but let us explain." she told him. "I…we need help getting rid of it. I'm not ready for this at all and I still want to do missions with SeeD. Irvy agreed it wasn't a good time either with him just making SeeD a month ago."_

"… _There's nothing stopping you from arranging an appointment to an outside clinic to take care of that." he pointed out. "You don't need me for that."_

" _I know but there's a bit of a timing issue._ _" Irvine explained. " _I'm leaving for a two month-long mission tonight and the clinic won't let her do this by herself because they use anaesthetics in the procedure. So if we don't do this soon, it'll be too late by the time I'll get back. I could ask for temporary leave halfway through the mission but, depending on how big her belly'll be by then, people might start saying things and _ _Selph really doesn't want anyone else to know since t_ his is hard enough on her as it is. _We…kind of figured you'd be the most trustworthy and non-judgemental person to ask._"_

 _Squall furrowed his brows. "So you found out about this just now?"_

" _Yes, we did." Selphie answered. "I didn't have any of those really obvious symptoms and totally spaced on the fact I haven't had any visits from Auntie Flow since late February until just now when Irvy said something. But my clothes have been getting a little snug lately so…I really might not have a lot more time."_

 _Ignoring the cringe-worthy, not to mention old-as-dirt, metaphor, the commander nodded. "Schedule an appointment whenever this week and I'll make time to take you. I've been meaning to get into town to pick up training supplies anyway."_

 _Without warning, Selphie got out of her chair and circled around his desk to give him an impromptu hug. It was the only time he'd ever seen her actually cry._

-—-

"So…you'll both still be there when I get back, right?" the sharpshooter reiterated.

It was a non-sensical question but Squall nodded all the same, figuring there'd be no point in the alternative.

"Glad to hear that, man. Alright, I'll let you catch some shut-eye."

After Irvine left, Squall thought about what just happened with the cowboy. It seemed stupid to insist on asking about something so clearly outside of his control, but in hindsight, Squall realized it was a kind of defense mechanism.

Despite how juvenile and irrational it was to assume that, just because he made a promise for him and Rinoa to be at Selphie's birthday party next week, the universe would comply and see to it that they'd still be around to attend but…he still couldn't fault him; he'd be the first to understand the power of promises. Not to mention the fact that even he had fallen victim to this when he was in the void of Time Compression, wondering why Rinoa couldn't find him even though they'd promised.

Likewise, Squall would be damned if he didn't try to uphold this promise too in spite of everything.

Not just for Irvine and Selphie, but for all of the gang; he was getting damn tired of disappointing everyone.

And it had to stop somewhere.


	14. Unearth

_("Answers don't find themselves.")_

-—-

Saturday, July 10th (Noon, Day 3)

"Rinoa says you've been experiencing random, stab-like pains in your stomach lately."

It was just shy of noon and Squall hadn't even been awake for a full five minutes when Dr. Kadowaki had come up to him and said this. Though he was still groggy, it didn't dull the significance of the comment any.

The sorceress didn't have confidence that he would tell her himself.

And he couldn't blame her; he never  _did_ explicitly promise her that he would despite all the obstacles she pointed out.

Rubbing a palm against the side of his itchy face, he groggily replied, "…I don't think it's directly related to the shooting."

Dr. Kadowaki looked at him skeptically. "If it's not, I'd like to know what you think it  _is_  related to then."

"It…" he paused, trying to find the words to begin this without sounding completely insane, "…might be related to Rinoa's powers. I'd have to talk to Cid to confirm my suspicion though."

"You're going to have to give me more than that if you expect me to let you leave." she curtly told him.

"…So Rinoa didn't tell you anything?"

"She may have, she might not have. Either way, I want to hear it from  _you_ , Commander Leonhart."

As stubborn as he tended to be, Squall could recognize that there was a time and a place for being obstinate. This wasn't one of them. And short of denying Irvine the details of his and Rinoa's personal life when the cowboy had asked, or at least when he'd thought that had been the intent of his question, Squall had a feeling it'd be a long time before obstinacy could be an option and not simply the harbinger of potentially-dire implications.

Needless to say, it innerved him.

"…Those stab-like pangs I felt in my stomach always coincided with whenever Rinoa had torn her stitches. It could be possible that this is a defense mechanism to protect her from pain but…I'd need to confirm my suspicions with Headmaster Cid."

"Has this happened before during the sorceress war?" she curiously asked. He shook his head.

"No, that's another reason why I need to speak with Cid. I've seen Rinoa in worse pain than she has been here and yet it's only happened in the past few days. There might be a specific trigger and I wouldn't know the full implications of this."

"Alright. I'll phone his office and bring the headset to you should he be available."

After he gave her a nod, ignoring the fact she'd previously hinted at the possibility of  _actually_  leaving, the doctor walked over to her desk and punched in the extension number he knew all too well. It wasn't long after he must have picked up on the other end.

"Hello Headmaster, do you have a minute?"

Dr. Kadowaki turned silent, presumably to listen to the headmaster's reply.

"It's about Commander Leonhart, something he needs to ask which relates to him and Miss Heartilly—" Pause. "You'd rather speak with him in person? I don't see what difference it would m—" She abruptly cut off her own sentence. "I see. Alright, I'll arrange for someone to escort him to your office."

The doctor hung up and looked at Squall. "I know you overheard all that, but he wants to discuss this in person among some other things he didn't want to elaborate on over the phone in an hour. I'll arrange to have someone bring you there just to make sure no complications occur."

"I can see the level of trust you have in me clearly knows no bounds." he deadpanned.

"If by 'knows no bounds,' you meant, 'approximates the distance I could throw you,' then yes." she wryly replied. "In all seriousness, this is just an added precaution in the event that you experience some kind of medical issue outside the infirmary. I  _trust_ you won't actively attempt to escape supervision?"

Squall furrowed his brows. "It's not like I could wheel away fast enough…"

"… _I dunno Squall, you do have a knack for miraculously managing to disappear at a moment's notice._ " a third voice quietly interjected. He didn't even need to have visual confirmation of the person to know who it was; he'd recognize Rinoa's brand of lighthearted quips anywhere.

Then he saw her frock-clad and non IV pole-attached figure poke past the wall and cabinets dividing their rooms with a weak smirk tugging at her lips. "I think she has a perfectly valid reason to ask." she teasingly added.

It was so hard not to say something back at her to effectively jumpstart another episode of bantering which had become a habit for them in the past year or so, but he managed to hold his tongue. Once again, there was a time and place for everything and this wasn't it.

He'd be damned if this simple action on her part didn't ease his mindset a little, however.

"Rinoa…" Dr. Kadowaki chided, causing Rinoa to look at her instead of Squall, "as much as I appreciate you humorously validating my question to our dear commander, there'd better be a more legitimate reason you're out of bed."

" _…There is._ " she mumbled. "I was just about to go to the bathroom and take a shower since I couldn't take one yesterday."

"Fair enough."

Without wasting any time after the exchange, Dr. Kadowaki proceeded to walk around Rinoa and towards the aforementioned cabinets closest to Squall's bed, plucking what seemed to be two sets of folded sheets, one was a red plaid and the other being black, from its shelves from his viewpoint.

Out of nowhere, the sorceress started giggling. Needless to say, the other two occupants in the room, three if one assumed Addison was within earshot range despite not being visibly present, were left slightly flummoxed. Luckily, this was remedied as Rinoa was quick with an explanation.

"Sorry. I know those are probably loaner clothes so he doesn't have to wear a gown out there but…Squall wearing a buttoned plaid shirt just doesn't compute in my brain. It basically short-circuited itself immediately after trying to mentally picture him in it…hence the giggling. Um, I'll just go now…"

Now that he paid more attention to what Dr. Kadowaki was exactly holding, the folded pile being loaner clothes made more sense than bedsheets, given that the black thing below the folded plaid shirt didn't really look like bedsheet-material now that he thought about it.

Even still, it was the lesser of two evils so he carefully put it, plus the black thing that ended up being a pair of cotton pants with an elastic waist, on without a single word after the doctor had handed it to him.

Sometime later when Dr. Kadowaki had her back turned while confirming details with Selphie, the only available candidate due to everyone else's incompatible schedules, and Rinoa had come out of the bathroom altogether after presumably finishing her shower, the sorceress shot him an amused look from across the room, complete with a Cheshire grin.

Naturally, he countered with an unamused stare back at her and, even though he did not believe that their bond could foster telepathy between them, the commander was damn-well certain she knew of how much he wanted to burn this shirt right now.

This hunch was more-or-less confirmed when she slowly mouthed,  _'I. Bet. You. Hate. Looking. Like. A. Lumberjack. Right. Now.'_

-—-

Partly inspired by Rinoa's teasing and partly incensed by his itchy face, not to mention  _literally_  pushed by Selphie, Squall had gone to his dorm to take care of a few things in order to kill time before he was due in the headmaster's office in half an hour.

Though her immediate reaction of,  _'No offense Squall but, you reaaally need to do something about that scruff — you look so weird!'_  upon seeing him for the first time in two days was classic Selphie, it was quickly plain to see that she was still not her normal self. Once they'd reached his dorm, somewhere she'd never been — though she had been in his double dorm back in the day, instead of poking around like he'd anticipated, she pulled out the sole chair he had by the small table in the main area and listlessly plunked herself down on it without a word, looking rather drained. It was strange sight to see to say the least.

Pushing those thoughts aside, Squall dragged himself to his bedroom first to look in his drawers for something to wear, the main criterion being that the said piece of clothing was anything  _other_  than what he was wearing now. Digging through the folded pieces of clothing though he knew he didn't have anything that would match the relative dressing ease that a button-down shirt would provide, Squall settled on a black tank top, figuring the lack of sleeves to contend with would be easy enough to put on.

It wasn't until he'd already undone the buttons single-handedly that something important had dawned on him; the button-down nature of the shirt made it easy to put on but it wouldn't change the difficulty in taking it off since the sleeves were fitted.

Ugly plaid shirt – 1, Leonhart – 0.

Even still, he'd be damned if he'd let the thing get the better of him. He carefully pulled down the right side below his affected shoulder with his left arm, alternating with the left side. Once the whole thing was below his shoulders, he grabbed the center of the shirt to pull it down manually since merely shrugging it off wasn't an option with his paralyzed side. With a bit of tenacity and wriggling, it was finally off and Squall wasted no time in pitching it onto his bed. Good riddance.

"Wow. I didn't think you'd be able to pull that off. Literally!" Selphie's voice echoed from behind him. Reflexively, Squall turned around only to have the petite brunette casually point at his right arm a few seconds later. "…I would have offered to get that shirt off you, but I kinda didn't know your one arm was that bad."

"…It's fine, don't worry about it."

"So…um, did you need help with the other one?"

"No, I can do it myself." he told her, sliding his right arm through one of the tank top's arm holes and proceeding to poke his head and other arm through the other holes right after, admittedly doing so quicker than he'd planned to just to prove his point. Selphie sighed.

"Ok, Mr. Stubborn, I get the point." she said, walking over to the bed to pick up the now-crumpled plaid shirt and giving it to him.

Squall tossed her a quizzical look. "…Why are you giving this back to me?"

"Because I think it'd look nice if you wore it open with that tank top underneath. Besides, you look like you're trying to sexily rob a bank with all that black on. The plaid shirt'll give you some colour, plus it can cover up your shoulder bandage."

… _Sexily robbing a bank?_  Though he did indeed wonder how one  _sexily_ robs a bank, Squall wasn't gonna touch that with a ten foot pole. And so, he shut up and just put the damn thing back on to appease her and avoid further general weirdness.

The ensuing silence was marvellous. So was the freedom to wheel into the bathroom and set out what he had actually intended to do in the first place.

Standing up and heavily leaning against the counter to look at his bathroom's mirror once he was in there, he could see why Rinoa and Selphie had both reacted the way they did. Since the last time he'd seen his own reflection two days ago, the stubble had turned into the beginnings of what looked like a very patchy beard — one that he was not the least bit sad in seeing gone after a few minutes despite all the tiny nicks and cuts he'd earned in the process. As ludicrous as it sounded in his own head to be romanticizing something like this, the mundane annoyances and trivialities of normalcy were a welcome change.

After cleaning up as best as he could, Squall carefully lowered himself back into the chair and headed out of room and back into the main area where Selphie was waiting.

"We can leave now." he told her.

" _Could I…just use your…bathroom real…quick first? It's… kind of…an emergency._ " she asked in response, looking rather twitchy all of a sudden as if something had instantaneously come over her. With his suspicions stemming from what Irvine had said the other night in the back of his head, he nodded straightaway.

Unsurprisingly enough, she bolted into the bathroom with her hand covering her face. Having failed to completely shut the door closed behind her, Squall surmised that it would be only a matter of time before he'd hear the sound of her experiencing a bout of—… _blowing her nose loudly into paper tissue?_ The commander had to shake his head. Go figure.

-—-

Ten minutes later, Squall found himself alone with the headmaster in his office, Selphie having been temporarily dismissed by the older man immediately upon arrival. Not wanting to waste the man's time with questions concerning why he wanted to see him in person as opposed to speaking with him over the phone, he cut straight to the chase.

"Lately, I've felt like my stomach was going to be stabbed during two instances where Rinoa had torn her abdominal stitches. Is this kind of link possible?"

Adjusting his glasses, the headmaster nodded. "It is. Like particularly-strong emotions can be sensed through the sorceress-knight bond, so can pain if the bond becomes strong enough. As you can probably imagine, it only goes one way so Knights can absorb the pain and protect their sorceresses from any severe bodily harm that they may endure to ensure their survival. Fortunately, it's only the sensation of pain that's transferred and not the wound itself. It also doesn't extend to naturally-occurring medical problems."

"I'd understand this happening when we were shot but…this was just Rinoa tearing her stitches." Squall countered. "She was going to be fine both times."

"I should have clarified. Typically, this event begins to occur whenever the sorceress experiences pain strong enough to potentially trigger fainting. So, if she has a low pain threshold or is susceptible to fainting, that could explain it."

"It's probably because of the amount blood involved. Rinoa's always been prone to fainting at the sight of blood." With his follow up question answered, the commander went on another tack. "So…is there a particular criteria for the bond becoming strong enough? Or is this just a matter of time?"

After a slight but noticeable pause, Cid shook his head. "There…is nothing concrete in terms of necessary milestones, I'm afraid. All I could tell you is that time is not a factor and it depends on the type of connection fostering the sorceress-knight bond. If the fostering element is strengthened enough, you'll get to this point. If it's weakened enough, then the reverse also applies."

"Makes sense." Squall mused aloud. "So…is there anything else I should know about?"

For the first time since their meeting, Cid cracked a smile. "The importance of resting and fully co-operating with your doctor and those in charge of the investigation."

"…That wasn't what I meant and I'm sure you were aware of that Headmaster."

"You're correct, I was. Even so, I want you to seriously consider this Squall." he told him. "I know this may prove to be a difficult time for you right now, but you can't let personal matters or pride get in the way. Despite what anyone might have led you to believe, this was an unfortunate  _random_ event where you two were merely the victims, not the instigators of it. No more, no less. If you fear retribution for anything you might say in relation to Rinoa, just remember that."

"…So we don't have to worry about telepathy or anything of that nature in the future?"

Cid lightly chuckled. "Fortunately, no. You might feel like it's there once the emotional link becomes a little more refined, but there's no actual telepathy to worry about. If that were the case, many a sorceress and knight would go insane from the constant intrusions." he explained. "Ideally, the bond's purpose is to benefit the sorceress by endowing her knight with enough added information to help him protect her better. Give too much information and the brain becomes overwhelmed, the resulting indecision helping no one."

Squall nodded. "Thank you for your time Headmaster."The headmaster gave a short nod back and the 19 year-old was free to go. Just like that. No reiterations of advice, no final parting words. It was strange, but Squall recognized that sometimes, silence held more power than spoken words could ever impart.

-—-

After what felt like an eternity waiting for Selphie to come back to escort him, Squall eventually made it back to the infirmary alone; his escort had informed him about a Garden Festival-related meeting she had to preside over in a few minutes and didn't stick around once he went through the door. Wheeling himself closer to his alcove, it wasn't long before he caught the sight of Dr. Kadowaki and Rinoa once more, the former by the backroom and the latter inexplicably sitting at the foot of his bed, legs crossed and her arms resting in her lap, thumbs twiddling and eyes focused on her feet.

"…Hey." he softly said to catch her attention.

Then her eyes caught sight of his form and it was like her whole body suddenly jolted awake and rid itself of all signs of boredom.

"Hey yourself," she parroted, the corners of her lips pulling upward, "thought you were gonna burn that shirt."

He gave her a one-shoulder shrug as he approached the bed's left side. "Didn't have any Fire magic on me."

"Well, it looks nice like open like that." she complimented, scooting off the bed to give him room. "Did Cid have any answers for you?"

After he locked the chair and transferred himself back onto the mattress once more, he nodded. "It's more or less what we thought. The bond transfers some of the sensation of pain to me as a defense mechanism to keep you from fainting in potentially-dangerous situations. I can't transfer pain to you and it doesn't happen with natural causes like general health problems and afflictions. I don't physically receive the corresponding wounds either."

Rinoa jokingly crinkled her nose. "Damn. I guess I'll still have to suffer through the nuisance of paper cuts."

"Did he say anything about the trigger of the transference?" Dr. Kadowaki interjected, finally coming into view from the latter half of the infirmary.

"No, there was nothing specific he could say." Squall answered. "All he said was it depends on the kind of connection the bond's fostered on. If the connection becomes strong enough, whatever it is, this starts taking effect. It'll also stop if it's weakened enough."

"So nothing quantifiable like an explicit action or…?"

"…It didn't sound like it." he curtly offered. "I wouldn't be able to pinpoint the start of this even if I wanted to given how the mechanics work."

Right then, Rinoa looked at him. "I hurt myself really badly in May when I fell off my bike and landed on a bunch of glass shards in the park." she told him. "It hurt like hell and Zone said I blacked out really fast from nerves because there was a really big piece in my arm. So maybe this is something really new?"

"…Probably is." he mumbled in agreement, his mind suddenly fixated on a particular detail.

The month.


	15. Dance

_("The elegance and intricacies of the steps make for a beautiful distraction.")_

-—-

Saturday, July 10th (Night, Day 3)

Squall wasn't sure how he managed it, though he reckoned that it probably had to do with luck and a little audacity, but he was currently not in the infirmary with a single soul aware of this fact. The luck owed to Dr. Kadowaki forgetting to put the wheelchair away. And the bit of audacity rooted from his decision to leave when the said doctor had just went to get coffee right before the cafeteria closed, Addison was already gone for the night and Rinoa was already fast asleep.

He damn well knew that he'd be caught because of the timing, but he really didn't care so long as he had enough time to accomplish what he sought out to do; this was important and it couldn't wait until morning. Not if he wanted an iota of sleep.

Having just wheeled himself to his dorm room without incident or detection, Squall went straight into his bedroom and towards his bookshelf nestled in the nearest right corner, promptly locking the wheelchair's brakes. Silently cursing his penchant for placing all his most important books in the top shelf which was at eye-level, he reached out to the bottom-level shelf to pull himself up. Once he was at full height, slowly but surely, he leaned into the bookcase for stability as he raised his left hand to reach for the book with the crimson spine that he knew so well.

As a precaution, Squall placed the book on the bottom shelf and took his time to lower himself back into the chair first. Even though it was essentially the same process he'd undertaken a few hours prior, it felt a little trickier this time around after the series of sharper-than-usual aches resulting from pressing his hips and thighs against the bookshelf ebbed and he suddenly felt so drained.

Although he couldn't place his finger on exactly why that was, he was oddly able to liken the aftermath with his long-past days as a preteen losing the last of his baby teeth. Namely, the constant cycle of hurt while you aggressively tried to finish the job until you finally succeeded, relishing the momentary dip in blood sugar because it meant that you won against the pain.

Squall won alright, but it took a moment for his head to stop reeling.

When it finally cleared, he unlocked the brakes of his chair and grabbed the book from the edge of the bottom shelf. Carefully placing it on the left side of his lap, he wheeled himself closer to his bed so he could place it flush on there and not have to worry about accidentally prodding his thigh wound.

Cracking the spine open, Squall perused the index and quickly found a section title that could possibly apply to his question. The number was fairly low so all it took was a few page flips with his hand for his eyes to be greeted with the title,

-—-  
 _ **Chapter II**_  
 _~Properties of the Bond~_  
-—-

He had come here because of a combination of things.

Because of the date Rinoa had mentioned in her bike story.

Because Cid's comments felt a little purposely vague and Dr. Kadowaki's comments made him wonder.

And most of all, because he realized that he needed to know more than he had about the bond and needed to stop putting it off and running away from this because the implications that just so happened to run through his mind like a chicobo with its head cut off.

Enough was enough. And so, he started poring through the pages until he found what he was looking for.

And sure enough, he found it fast.

Part VIII – Sorceress-to-Knight Pain Transference

 _Though there does not appear to be any particular criteria necessary to be fulfilled for the Bond to be strong enough in order for pain transference to begin occurring, secondary studies have suggested that in the case of a Bond fostered through a primarily non-platonic origins (noted as the most commonly-occurring source), strong, emotionally-charged sensations of affection, often aided or induced through sexual consummation of the relationship (or in subsequent encounters if such emotional response is latent or previously absent), is likely serve as the trigger for_

Squall closed the book, not bothering to read the rest of the sentence. It was along the lines of what he'd anticipated and yet…still somehow managed to hit home. Then again, knowing something and having that same thought confirmed, it just…all he could do was rub his tired eyes.

Clearly, the headmaster had not been direct with him for more reasons than he'd initially thought. Considering the fact that this passage alone didn't specify if these feelings had to be mutual, and Squall was pretty sure Cid knew as little as everyone else seemed to know, it wouldn't have been wise to potentially bring up revelations of feelings he might not have been aware of on both his or Rinoa's end. Especially as this was already a touchy subject to begin with.

Squall shook his head and couldn't help but wistfully smirk a little.

…He'd changed so much in the past few months alone.

-—-

Friday, March 5th (Night, Months Ago)

On the night of the SeeD ball, Squall was outside on the balcony at the end of the second floor, surveying the skies above alone. There had been much to celebrate tonight — Quistis had gotten her license reinstated this past winter term, this year boasted the largest batch of cadets to make SeeD since Garden's inception and there was Rinoa's belated birthday too.

But there was an additional 'cause' for celebration he wanted nothing to do with. And for that, he let out a long sigh, relishing the momentary peace amid the stars dotting the sky and the serene moon looking down on him after a long night of socialization had drained him thoroughly.

" _These people and their delusions…_ " he softly grumbled under his breath, "… _I'm no hero._ "

As the words died on his lips, he could hear the loud, cold echoes of someone climbing up the steps to the door separating the inside from the balcony. Turning around, he wasn't the least bit surprised to see her black and white halter-style dress fill the gap once the door slid open. While the glint emanating from the fitted rhinestones on the dress's bodice might have made Rinoa look like some kind of angelic figure in the moonlight, the playful, borderline mischievous grin on her face made him reconsider the thought nigh-instantaneously.

Plus, he didn't think angels were too keen on above the knee dress hems. Made it hard to pull off all of the requisite gown swishing and what have you.

"Hiding here so I can't force you to put up with one last dance as a belated birthday present?" she teased, walking a few steps closer.

Squall shrugged. "It's nothing personal. Just needed to get away for a moment."

"I…heard that things have been tough the past couple of days though." she countered, casting him a concerned look as she took a spot beside him at the barrier. "You ok?"

"…I'm fine."

"As your best friend, I'm morally obligated to bully you for more detailed answers, I think." she light-heartedly added. When he tossed her a slight look and rolled his eyes, her smile returned. "All bad attempts at trying to get you to roll your eyes aside, you sound like there's a lot on your mind."

"It'll go away eventually. It always does."

Like clockwork, her grin disappeared once more. "I'd say we can talk about it here if you want but I don't want to get in this too deep and miss the train back to Timber. Promise not to hang up on me if I happen to call sometime this week to talk?"

"…You're taking the train back?"

Rinoa nodded. "I couldn't find anyone I could room with for the night. I'm sure you know that Quistis has a mission to leave for very early in the morning. And Selphie's…well, to put it a little more politely, I know she's attending an after-party of two and I'm not the other person if you catch my drift."

"…I wish I didn't. Thanks for the mental image." the commander dryly replied.

"You're welcome." she cheekily added, having the audacity to laugh a little too. "Actually, come to think of it, would there be any spare dorms I could use?"

While a small part of wondered why she hadn't asked him directly to stay in his room, an even larger part wondered why he even wondered that; then again, after two years of knowing her, he still couldn't quite figure out what made her tick sometimes. Needless to say, it made for a lot of unpredictability on her part and incorrect assumptions on his. Nevertheless, like the stubborn person he was, he…never quite got the hang of letting something like that go and simply take her actions at face value.

Ignoring those thoughts, he answered her straight. "There should be some vacant cadet double dorms after tonight's move-in and administration did finally give me a master key card."

"So is that a yes?" After he nodded, she clapped her hands together happily. "Great, this makes things so much easier. Thank you."

"…It's not a problem. I'll need to crosscheck the database to see which dorms were completely vacated."

"Alright. We should do that then now?"

"Might as well. It's probably around 22:30 or so. Curfew's soon."

When that damn smile of hers returned for what had to be the umpteenth time tonight, he realized his error and her soon-to-be response. This source of contention never failed to elicit the same comment from her.

"God Squall, I told you once and I'll tell you a million times, be a normal person for once and just say 10:30."

Bingo.

Against his better judgement — and Squall couldn't blame any of his actions on alcohol this year, having made the conscientious decision not to drink more than glass because of last year's events — he shot her a knowing look in kind before they started to walk back in and basically took the bait as he told her, "There's no point in restating what I said in non-military time when you clearly understood the first time around already. If I were speaking to you in ancient Centran, then maybe I'd consider your plight here."

"Ugh. You and your 'it's not like I'm telling you this in ancient Centran' excuse." Rinoa threw her hands up in defeat. "That argument needs to die in a fire. Now. Or better yet, actually speak some ancient Centran so I can at least I can't understand you when you're being ridiculous."

Squall raised a brow. "…Right. I wasn't aware that your first instinct would be to whole-heartedly ignore me if I started to speak to you in ancient Centran instead of badgering me about what it was I said."

"Ugh. You're such a dork Leonhart."

In spite of himself, he purposely replied with,  _"Pa dryhgvim oui'na lymmehk sa yht hud y landyeh syndeym yndecd y tung. Ra't ryja vih ehvunsehk oui dryd tung ymcu sayhc fryma bahec. Dnicd sa, ujanraynehk res damm cusauha amca dryd fyc pyt ahuikr."_

Rinoa narrowed her eyes as she walked past the door. "Smart-ass."

Though she couldn't see it, Squall smirked. Oh, how little she knew.

After going down the steps and meandering through the mostly-empty halls, they reached his locked office in about a span of five minutes, being on the same floor and all. Swiping his card key through the reader, they quietly entered the room and Squall took a seat in his desk chair, opened the lid of his laptop resting at the center of his desk and turned it on. As the machine booted up, Rinoa simply waited beside the commander, not bothering to pull up chair from the other side of the desk.

Once the start-up screen popped up, Squall entered in his password and it wasn't long after that when he found himself pulling up the program which kept track of the dormitory arrangements and noticing a particular number of a currently-vacant dorm catch his eye. After closing the program, logging off and shutting the lid in quick succession, Squall noticed the surprised look on Rinoa's face once he got up.

"I found a dorm that's closer to the SeeD wing though it's on the beginning of the male side of the cadet double dorms. Unfortunately, there was only one female cadet who passed the exam so she left behind a roommate in her old room." he informed her, thinking this detail was the source of her confusion.

"Oh, ok." she mumbled. "I thought something had gone wrong by how fast you zipped through that. Um…so now that that's settled, I was wondering about pyjamas. Could I borrow some of your old clothes or something? I don't want to bother Quistis since she's probably sleeping already."

He nodded.

"Thanks." she replied.

Right then, they began to walk out of the room and headed towards the commander's dorm. There were a few stragglers here and there, but the area surrounding the SeeD wing was pretty much devoid of people. Whether it was simply luck or design, Squall didn't want to push his good fortune.

When he was at his dorm door and Rinoa was still several steps behind, Squall swiped his card through the reader and made a beeline for the clothes drawer in his room. The rate he'd been going must have truly been fast since the moment he doubled back to the main area of his dorm after plucking out a shirt and pair of cotton pants, he nearly collided into the sorceress. After handing her the set and uttering a sorry, Squall exited his dorm rather silently. Rinoa followed suit, albeit not as quietly.

"…Um, shouldn't I have tried this on first before walking to the room?" she asked.

"They're just clothes to sleep in Rinoa. The fit shouldn't matter as long as you can get into them."

"…True."

As they moved down the corridor and towards the male cadet wing, the silence remained. Squall couldn't think of anything of value to say and he figured Rinoa couldn't either. Once they were there a few moments later, the commander swiped his master card key through a reader for what felt like the millionth time tonight and as the door hissed open, he secretly exhaled in relief upon seeing the dorms completely devoid of people or any indications that the room had been lived in; it meant that the room had already been prepped and cleaned earlier this evening and the sorceress would therefore most likely encounter no unwelcome intrusions later on.

Even in its sterile and spartan state of affairs, Squall felt a slight pang of nostalgia before Rinoa caught his eye once more and the door closed behind her.

"I'm…just gonna go change now. Thanks again."

The commander nodded. After she'd retreated in the nearby bathroom to the left, Squall made his way past the table and to the right-side bedroom facing him through the far wall. Once he went through the open space, he noticed that the bed in the far right corner wasn't made so he crouched down in front of the nightstand table on the left of it and pulled out the bottom drawer where he knew the spare bedsheets would have been kept. Plucking out the sheets, he got back up and began to make the nearby bed. A couple of minutes later however, he was interrupted.

"Squall…are you still here?"

Hearing Rinoa's voice echo from the main room as he was just putting the top covers on, Squall left the top sheet as it was and called out to her in kind.

"Still here, just making the bed in the right bedroom."

Right then, he walked back to where she was, wondering what she could be possibly calling out to him for because of the sheepish undertone to her voice.

Once he was back in the main area, Squall stopped on a dime upon seeing her.

" _Those…look like they're about to fall down._ " he quietly remarked a few seconds later once his eyes had drifted low enough; she had been standing on the other end of the room, holding up the heather-grey cotton pants by the drawstring where there was a pre-existing knot.

"This knot is stuck like this and I can't leave it be unless if I want them to my ankles. It's…also too close to the waist to make a second knot for how tight I need it. I tried and tried but it won't come out." she explained. "Do you have another pair this size or smaller?"

"I don't." he honestly answered, walking closer to her. "…But maybe I could try to undo the knot myself."

"If you could, that'd be great." she said, hooking her thumb right behind the knot, presumably for him to start working on it. Admittedly, trying to undo the said knot while she was  _still_ wearing the pants on was not…exactly the same way he would have chosen to tackle this problem.

Still, taking the drawstring in hand, he began to work at the knot methodically, trying his damndest not to think about where his hands happened to be or even where he himself was in general. This task was made especially difficult seeing as his old v-neck shirt she was wearing was large enough for the neckline to dip a  _little_  too low for his liking.

How ironic his earlier words about the fit of sleeping clothes turned out to be.  _Really._

Nevertheless, after a few false starts, Squall made short work of the knot and without thinking much of it, he started tying the drawstring and once the knot was starting to bunch up the material of the pants, the commander looked up at her and she wordlessly took over the job and did the full bowtie herself. Even as she did this, Squall found himself lingering there for a moment before stepping back.

After she softly told him thanks once more, she followed up with, "…So, when did you want me to swing by your room tomorrow morning so I can give you your clothes back?"

He shrugged. "…Doesn't matter. I'll be up."

"…Alright." Even with those words spoken, he still felt a certain reluctance on her part to move from her spot or to even say goodbye. "Um, I was just thinking, did you just wanna, I don't know…stay here tonight instead? It might be easier that way."

"Rinoa…you know I can't. Staying here for as long as I did was already pushing it."

"But isn't the rule that you couldn't have someone of the opposite sex in your room?" she pointed out, cheekily adding, "Last time I checked, this isn't  _your_ room."

"Actually, it was before I made SeeD."

"…Really?"

He nodded.

"So...you picked this room because it used to be yours?"

He shrugged. "I figured it was just one less unknown occupant in that bed's history…not that I'm implying they don't clean the sheets and mattresses thoroughly."

The corners of her lips upturned in a warm smile. "Aw. That's kinda sweet… _in a really, really odd way._ " When Squall gave her a funny look, she immediately added, "But it is! It really is. You picked a bed you at least knew something about for me. In fact, I even bet the bed you made while I was changing was yours and not your old roommate's."

"…You're reading way too much into this."

"You make that sound like that's such a big deal. Can't you just allow me to trick myself into thinking that you just wanted to be nice?"

"…That's got to be the strangest sentence I've heard in a long time."

Her smirk grew larger as she let out a small laugh. "I believe it. But in all seriousness…could you please stay? It's not like I'm asking to do something scandalous with you like share the same bed, try to get you hammered or even to talk about your SeeD exam mission if you don't want to talk about it. I'd just like some company and to make the morning a little easier. That's it."

After a careful moment of deliberation, he told her, "If you promise to wake up at whatever ungodly hour I think is necessary to avoid problems with Garden…I'll stay."

Needless to say, Rinoa looked absolutely surprised and delighted by his answer. And, if he wanted to be completely honest with himself, he felt the same way even if his outward expression didn't show it.

"So…do you need to go back to get some sleeping clothes?" she asked shortly after, "I can't imagine you being comfortable or even allowed to sleep in your SeeD uniform."

Squall shook his head. "I usually sleep in boxers and undershirt anyway so it's not a big deal.  _…What?_ "

"…Nothing." she claimed, obviously trying to downplay the earlier look she'd given him. The slight blush on her face betrayed her words, however. "I just never knew that about you. And to be honest, I had you pegged as a full-on pyjamas guy."

"What makes you say that?"

She shrugged. "Random hunch, I guess. Doesn't mean anything. So…um, what time are you considering as the, quote-unquote, ' _ungodly hour_ ' we're going to get up at?"

"Probably around 5:30." When she crinkled her nose, he couldn't help but smirk. "You wanted me here; you pay the price to make sure we don't get in trouble Heartilly."

"I don't care. You're just plain old mean, Leonhart. There is no way I'm going to get up that early. I'm wired enough already to not be able to even  _think_  about sleeping for another two hours minimum."

"Well, I'm going to bed now to make sure I can wake you up in time." he told her, taking off the jacket portion of the uniform. "Do you need a sleep spell to fall asleep?"

Rinoa solemnly shook her head. "No, I'll try sleeping naturally. Sleep spells give me nightmares anyway."

"Alright. I'll be over in the left bedroom if you need anything."

Just as he was about to go into the room, her voice stopped him. " _Squall_ … _wait_." He turned around. "Can you just stay up for like…a half-hour with me?"

The truth was that he was actually tired and tacking on another half-hour would make it around 23:20, mostly likely leaving him less than six hours to sleep by the time he'd actually fall asleep, and more importantly, likely to give her less than six hours for  _her_ to sleep. Still, he indulged her request and they sat at the main area's table, talking, well more so in Rinoa's case than his, about whatever for the half-hour.

True to her word from earlier, not once had she attempted to talk about the mission assigned for the SeeD final exam, something he was thankful for at the time; just listening to her talk about other things did his soul some good and distracted him from the mission's aftermath, if only for a little while.

The said mission had been to eradicate a small number of genetically-modified Malboros hanging around the city limits of Esthar on the behest of Laguna. The source of the problem owed to a Dr. Odine experiment borne out of the doctor's boredom and subsequently discarded when he apparently hadn't achieved what was looking for with the experiments, releasing the monsters without a thought about the potential consequences or dangers of his actions. Typical Odine behaviour at its very worst.

As for the mission, all had gone well with the group of cadets Squall had been in charge of until a Galbadian turncoat, he had a name but Squall absolutely refused to acknowledge that fact, in the midst of the group had tried to incapacitate him when they were trying to secure the perimeter — the most vital aspect of the mission. The excessive noise during the attempted coup was enough to attract several of the nearby Malboros, endangering the lives of the other SeeD candidates in the confused state of affairs. And they most certainly would have all died if not for Squall intervening in the nick of time with some fast thinking and even faster reflexes once he'd subdued the turncoat.

But while he had definitely saved the majority of the group from an untimely demise, he…still couldn't save them all. Out of the group of six he was looking over, he'd only saved four. The turncoat was quickly killed by the strengthened power of the modified Malboros. Caught by a Bad Breath attack without any of the appropriate protective spells cast on himself or status-defence junctions on after the commander left him utterly winded, the resulting petrification proved lethal when one of the Malboros swung a tentacle at him which shattered his body into fragments, killing him in an instant.

The second was Cadet Ami Leathorn, the only cadet from his squad who would have passed the exam had she lived; she was the only one who kept her focus on the Malboros once they approached the group, making a point of casting protective spells on the other cadets when their attentions all diverted towards the turncoat fighting their commander and actively reminded them all that the Malboros weren't going to politely wait for the other tussle to be over. Even still, she was no match for several Malboros at the same time and met her demise early on, earlier than Squall was able to disable the turncoat and finish off the rest of the beasts.

Squall might have saved everyone else by finishing the job, but dammit…he was not the hero here, Ami was. Still, no matter his protests, she was merely relegated to victim status, vaguely alluded to today for fear of putting a damper on the achievements of the others tonight with the promise she'd have a proper tribute and burial ceremony on Monday.

That's why he had to leave when he had tonight. Squall might have passed the mandated psychiatric evaluation post-exam with flying colours and managed to be somewhat social tonight, but it didn't mean he couldn't be privately hung up over it. Though he knew Rinoa had been told something, though he was not quite sure of the extent, he also knew with certainty that no one had told her about Ami or even the turncoat's death given how she hadn't pursued it as aggressively as she would have otherwise.

And honestly, he didn't have the strength to let her know about all this, perfectly comfortable with fully-taking advantage of her offer and purposely leaving her in the dark, even.

The next morning, they'd gotten up that morning at 5:30 am as planned, despite the sheer volume of Rinoa's complaints, while the rest of Garden was still dead to the world, either sleeping off hangovers or just merely choosing to sleep in. They walked out of the room and Squall quickly doubled back to his own dorm to change into less formal clothes before he then accompanied her to the train station in Balamb for the first train to Timber leaving at 6:30.

They waved goodbye when the time came around and Squall walked home by himself, the first action upon getting back consisting of returning to his old dorm to strip the beds of sheets and fold them up properly to place them back in their respective drawers.

After that, he went back to his office to manually override the security logs to remove evidence that he'd used his master key card for this particular door. Short of anyone noticing the two of them on video, though this was unlikely since potential incidents seen on tape were often questioned shortly after no matter the time, nobody would have known he and Rinoa slept in the same dorm.

It was all so much simpler this way.

And from the perspective of current-day Squall, he couldn't have agreed any less; it was only the catalyst for the things to come.


	16. Obscure

_("Things are only as clear as we make them.")_

-—-

Friday, March 26th (Late Afternoon, Months Ago)

To say the least, Squall was not in a good mood today.

He had a seemingly-insurmountable amount of work to plod through and Rinoa just so happened to pick this particular day to tell him that there was a once-in-a-lifetime, albeit very risky, opportunity for the Owls to exploit though they had only found out about it  _this_  morning and a plan needed to be cooked up  _by_  tonight. Even despite Rinoa's abuse of positive adjectives for what this could mean for the Owls' cause, he'd been torn as to what to do.

But then she'd asked about when all of his work was due and when he failed to give an answer with specifics — all he could say was that it was the kind of thing that piled up quickly — she busted him, laying on the guilt trip thick enough to make escape possible. He didn't take it personally however, being fully aware of how she could be when there was something she truly wanted; namely the undeniable inverse relationship between level of desire and tactfulness.

Then he finally caved.

And now he was standing in front of the frame of her apartment's front door where she was filling the gap, alarms going off in his head. It was around 7:00 pm local time, fourteen hours before this 'once in a lifetime opportunity' would start according to what she'd said over the phone.

"…Zone and Watts  _aren't_ here?" he asked quizzically.

"Aah, I must have forgotten to mention they weren't in town today. They'll be back tomorrow night though." she said, ushering him inside. "It'll be just you and me on this."

He followed her in, his mental alarms almost deafening now.

"Rinoa, stop." he told her; after locking the door, she turned around, looking far too jittery for his liking. "I clearly heard them in the background when you called this afternoon and the very scant details of what you described over the phone would need two people at the very least. You never said a thing about needing that kind help and for something this allegedly pivotal, I doubt you'd forget to mention that detail. Mind telling me the real reason I'm here?"

When she frowned, it was clear to see that he'd seen through everything already. What was it about this organization and the half-baked schemes of its members?

"Quistis called me." she began. "She said that you've been running yourself into the ground trying to take on so much without the help people tried to give you. Everyone's worried about you so…I told her I'd help by making something up so you could eat and rest up some for a day or two."

Squall crossed his arms. "I still don't get how slacking off will help in the short run. It'll only pile up the work  _and_  the stress."

"It's still being worked on, just by different people." Rinoa pointed out. "If you actually delegated work like everyone's told you to do, you wouldn't be so stressed and worn out. And honestly Squall, I am very worried for your health after what Quistis told me. Skipping meals and not sleeping a lot for weeks on end isn't good."

"I'll live Ri—"

The apartment suddenly went dark. Part of him suspected that it was merely Rinoa accidentally, hell, even purposely, leaning on the living room light switch, but he knew better; the small gasp on Rinoa's end when it happened suggested she was as surprised as he was.

"Oh, weird." she remarked afterward, moving past the door and towards her room across the living area and to the left of the couch and tv set; the only habitually-unlocked room in the apartment with a window. Though to be quite frank, Squall wouldn't have been keen on going into Zone's room, which was to the right of Rinoa's, even if it had been unlocked.

Squall dropped his bag and followed suit, being careful not to bump into the tv in the center of the living room or the bar-like countertop and its corresponding stools on the left which divided the living room from the kitchen area. Once he walked past the frame of the doorway and stood at the foot of the bed in the center of the room, his eyes were immediately drawn to the right side of it where the window Rinoa was looking out from was; the newly-rising moon was the only source of light at the moment, softly illuminating half of the room. Just then, the sorceress turned around.

"The power's out everywhere."

"…I can see that."

"Well…I know you didn't want to stay, but it looks like you might have to now. Even if the power goes back on soon, the trains will probably be down for the rest of night as a precaution. I've seen them do that before." she explained, walking over to sit in the middle her bed. A moment later and she was looking up at him once more. "Guess someone up there found a way to make sure I didn't screw this up."

"…Not funny Rinoa."

The raven-haired sorceress sighed. "Ok, maybe it wasn't, but you're still gonna be here for awhile anyway. Why not relax a bit? I'd be happy to lend an ear if you want to vent about things."

"I can't talk about most of it for confidentiality reasons." he tersely answered.

"Ok…how about a nap? You can borrow my bed."

"Too much caffeine in my system now. Won't be able to sleep 'til later."

"You could still lie down."

"…That's not being very productive."

No sooner had he heard the loudest and least thinly-veiled sigh on the history of the planet, Squall felt a violent tug at his pants' waistband. Whether it was the darkness or the simple fact that she'd caught him uncharacteristically unawares, he was yanked sideways onto the bed without much effort, landing on his back. The next thing he knew, he saw Rinoa tower over him as she leaned to her right, still sitting on the bed.

"Stay like that and relax, please."

Naturally, he attempted to get up but his torso was met by Rinoa's right arm and soon her whole shoulder was pinning him back down on the bed.

With her face directly beside his on the left, he shot her a look. "Rinoa…"

"It's for your own good Squall." she said. "Don't make me lie on top of you completely."

"…You say that as if I wouldn't have the strength to get you off of me."

…And of course, she immediately decided to roll over and on top of him then, her arms crossed atop of his chest with her chin rested upon her arms, only her eyes and tangle of jet black bangs visible from his vantage point. And just like she'd threatened, the rest of her lied flush on top of him.

"You really need to  _unwind_  Squall." she reiterated in a matter-of-fact manner. "I said this once and I'll say it again. Your paperwork is in Balamb and no trains are going to come for awhile even if the power goes back on soon. You're not going to get back there anytime soon and even then, others are trying to help you do it so it's not like you're doomed if you don't go back this very instant. Why can't you just relax and take advantage of the time you have away from it?"

"Because. I don't like being called away under false pretenses."

"That didn't stop you from staying with me the one day months ago I made up that story to get you here because I was lonely."

"…That was different."

"Why is it different?"

He stayed silent. It…really wasn't, but still.

"Squall…I just want to help you out. I know it's wrong to trick you, but you gotta believe I'm…we're only trying to look out for you."

At that moment, she uncrossed her arms resting on his chest to give him a slightly-modified but tight hug, resting the side of her face where her arms had previously been.

"…I can't believe you actually resorted to lying on top of me to keep me still."

He felt her smirk into his shirt. "…Hey, don't knock what works."

And right at that moment, Squall decided he had enough of the charade and freed himself from her 'supposedly-effective' hold tactic.

…Namely by grabbing her wrists and flipping her on the bed the second she loosened her arms out of the hug, putting her in the very position he'd been in a few seconds prior.

Within a matter of a split second, her wrists were pinned above her head and he was kneeling over her with his legs straddling her torso.

"…What was that you were saying?" he teased.

Even in the dark, he could see Rinoa narrow her eyes. "You. Jerk."

"It's not my fault you make false claims."

"And how do you know your plan isn't foolproof either? You only have my wrists pinned. You're not actually sitting on me so who's to say I couldn't just slip out from between your legs?"

"I'd be the one to say. You still wouldn't be fast enough. Even if you were, I'd still have your wrists pinned and they're not going anywh—"

Out of nowhere, Rinoa raised her head enough to kiss him square on the lips, interrupting his sentence for a good five seconds before she cut it out.

"Damn, thought that would have made you let go of me for sure, guess I should have randomly licked your face instead. Oh well, might as well make lemonade from lemons here. Wanna make-out while you're on top of me?"

Squall lackadaisically shrugged. "Why not?"

Rinoa blinked hard. "Wait… _what?_ "

He smirked. "…In case if you couldn't tell, your back-up plan to scare me off failed and I wasn't being the least bit serious."

"You. Ass. I should make-out with you out of spite."

"Like it'd go far."

"No, it would because I'm just that awesome. So awesome that even you couldn't resist my charms and you'll be like,  _'What the…how did that happen? This was only supposed to be a ridiculous joke that I wasn't supposed to take seriously, how did you—_ "

Returning the favour, he cut her off with a brief kiss. When their lips parted once more, Squall could have sworn he'd felt the heat of her intense blush radiating from her cheeks.

"…Don't read too much into that." he quietly told her. "I just wanted you to shut up."

"If that was you trying to be funny, I'm not laughing. You're stealing my bit and my underhanded tactics, you thi—"

Once again, he purposely cut her off in the same manner to annoy her, but what was only intended to last a few seconds somehow turned into a few seconds more before he finally ended it. While she probably wouldn't have noticed the small delay that time, it was difficult not to glean something from the fact that it was only a couple seconds later when he found himself willingly reciprocating another kiss from her and allowed it to run its natural course instead of clipping it short for the purpose of teasing in the vein of their earlier shenanigans, only stopping when they both needed air.

"…Should I read something into that?" Rinoa coyly asked afterward between shallow breaths.

He immediately let go of her wrists right then and got off the bed.

But instead of leaving the room altogether, he found himself gravitating towards the window and the moonlight shining through it. Naturally, it wasn't long before he heard the dull springs of her bed give and the sound of her footsteps inching behind him.

"This…doesn't have to be complicated." she calmly stated.

He looked back at her, drawn to her dark eyes in the moonlight.

"But it is. It always is."

"It doesn't have to be, but it'll be as complicated as you make it Squall."

He turned back around towards the window, bowing his head slightly. Not that it made much difference when Rinoa fitted herself in the gap between him and the window, looking up at him.

"Just once…" she instructed, looping her hands around the back of his neck, "…don't think about it, don't fight it. Live in the moment, not thirteen steps ahead. It doesn't have to mean anything you don't want it to. And it doesn't have to leave this room either."

With that, she simply stood there with the moonlight caressing her like a halo, waiting for him to make his next move, whatever that entailed. And for once in his life, he ignored the paralyzing 'no's in his head and dared to live in the moment instead of analyzing it like a game of chess as he leaned in closer, taking her up on her suggestion.

The next thing he knew, they were locking lips once more and she was slowly guiding him away from the window. When the back of his legs hit what must have been the end of dresser she had against middle of the right hand wall, he reflexively broke contact with her to look down and verify his suspicion. But it didn't stay that way as Rinoa wasted no time in re-establishing contact by lightly leaning against him using the leverage her hands around his nape provided, forcing him to plant his palms on top of the dresser for stability.

When things grew more fervent in their kissing, Squall noticed her hands sliding down to his waistband, drawing her fingers at his v-neck shirt's hem, raising it ever so slowly not to disrupt contact for a more prolonged period of time. If he had half a mind to say anything at the moment — he damn well didn't — he would have told her that she was driving him certifiably insane with the combination of her warm digits brushing their way upwards along with the shirt and the slight coldness of the apartment air coming in contact with his skin, making her fingers act like lit matches.

Once the shirt was off his head and discarded, she cupped the Griever pendant of his necklace to bring it closer to her and unhooked the clasp at the bottom, letting that end of the chain slink around his neck before it pooled into the palm of her hand and she quietly placed it on the dresser behind him. She then looked up at him once more, pausing for a good moment to look into his eyes illuminated in the moonlight, as if to admire them and yet, also looking at them for approval.

"Do you…want to?" she quietly asked him. Standing there in front of him that ruby-red and black spaghetti-strap blouse and her well-worn jeans, she couldn't have looked any more beautiful and alluring at that moment. Still, even in the vein of her initial suggestion, he absolutely did not want to do anything she wasn't ready for.

"…Only if you want to." he softly replied.

When she stopped gazing into his eyes to give him a quick nod, it took a moment for her answer to fully register in his mind. During that time, she slowly closed the gap once more, placing her hands on his back and softly kissing the crook of his uncovered neck, making her hips lightly connect with and tease his. At this point, it hadn't taken long for his body to finally start reacting to her proximity or for the silken material of her top to start bothering the living hell out of him as it continued to rub against his skin.

Spontaneously picking her up at the waist, he placed her where he'd been so she'd be the one with her back to the dresser, purposely creating a gap between them.

"…Changed your mind?" she asked, a shot of hesitation faintly colouring her face; it disappeared when he shook his head a few seconds later.

Without a word, he placed his hands at the hem of her shirt and grabbed hold of it, systematically lifting it up with enough speed without the intention to tease or show desperation. Once it was off altogether, it was discarded in the same manner his shirt had been earlier and he took a moment to take her in fully as she stood before him in a black strapless bra and her aforementioned jeans against the moonlight. Her silky black hair, beautiful dark eyes and lashes, her flawless alabaster skin and soft curves…

… _God, she truly was beautiful._

Finally letting his hormones fully take over and the last of his control slip away, he began to kiss her collarbone with newfound ardour, the brusqueness of his actions causing a moan to escape her lips as he had her pinned between himself and the dresser, his hands on the small of her back. When he took a small breath and he let his lips trail from her collarbone, to the crook of her neck and finally up to right behind her ear, he could feel her body tremble beneath him and her hands manually moving his own from her back to her jeans' button.

Without much thought, he complied with her wishes and undid the button and the zipper. After the jeans had sluggishly fallen to the ground and she'd kicked them aside, his mind had more or less went on autopilot from that point on, the effect she had on his body had become undeniably intoxicating and all-encompassing.

To this day, he didn't know how they'd ended up on the bed, how he ended up on top of her or how he'd even gotten the last barriers off.

All he knew was that the taste of her was like oxygen now and he needed to breathe.

All he remembered was that his movements had been uncertain and slightly hesitant as they had been tinged with the sharpness of her breaths and the immense difficulty he had in reconciling his pleasure with her pain until that very sound of hurt in her breathing had finally dulled towards the end.

And all he was left with was the guilt he'd felt afterwards as he wondered if he just hadn't done this right at all.

"…I'm sorry if it hurt." he quietly told her a few moments after the fact.

"It's ok. I knew it was supposed to the first time."

"First time?" he found himself reflexively reiterating, only achieving to make Rinoa softly chuckle at him.

"You sound surprised."

Right now, he wanted nothing better than to hit himself for that moronic reaction. Instead, he settled for the next best thing — pinching the bridge of his nose. "That…didn't come out right. At all."

Rinoa chuckled some more. "It's not a big deal, really. I can see why you'd wonder about me and Seifer once upon a time, long before he thought it'd be such a  _great_  idea to sacrifice me to Adel. That being said, I get to ask the same to you."

He looked at her quizzically. "I thought it was fairly obvious."

"Sorry, it's hard to tell with you sometimes. I mean, you are a pretty quiet guy and all…but still a guy nonetheless."

He shook his head. "I never had time for this kind of thing before."

"…So, I was your first too?" she concluded.

Even in the dark, the instant he nodded back at her, Squall noticed her face light up though she didn't say another word about it. Deep down, though he was not sure what this would all lead to or mean in the long run for them, he had to admit that even he was irrationally content about that particular fact as well.

-—-

Finished reminiscing for the night, Squall's body finally gave out and crashed.


	17. Weather

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long story short, ever since I'd finished that last chapter, I'd been pretty much devoted to obsessively writing out notes in my spare time in an effort to hammer out the rest of the key details to make this a very structured, well-planned story. Got up to Chapter 59 recently and then my computer suddenly wouldn't boot. I was recently told that the hard drive is fried and all hope at file recovery is pretty much gone. Luckily, I wrote down a brief summary of what's supposed to happen at what chapter and some of the later chapters are preserved through e-mail correspondence with a friend so...don't worry about me not being to finish, I'm just venting because I'm pissed off.
> 
> Now on a story-related note, I have a tidbit to present to you from last chapter. If you'll notice the description of what Rinoa's wearing, wouldn't you say it closely resembles the colour scheme of someone else's dress in-game? (I totally went there.)
> 
> So yeah, enough of me being a goon. Here's the chapter. Might be a little on the short side and rusty writing-wise.

-—-—-—-—-—-

_**Chapter XVI — Weather** _

__("Unexpected storms are usually the most difficult to brave.")_ _

-—-

_ Sunday, July 11th (Noon, Day 4) _

 

As the ambient sounds of the infirmary began to fill his ears, Squall knew it would only be a matter of time before he'd have to open his eyes and accept whatever verbal abuse Dr. Kadowaki had in store for him for leaving the infirmary. Especially since he could sense  _someone's_  presence standing right next to him on the left side of his bed.

"Squall, I know you're awake. Don't make me dump water on your head to get you to admit it." Dr. Kadowaki's voice boomed.

Never mind, she wasn't even in the mood to wait for his eyes to open.

Cracking an eye open, he was met with the fuzzy sight of her unamused stare and folded arms. Frankly put, he felt like shit and opening the other eye didn't seem to improve matters either. As he carefully began to move his good side to prop himself up at slightly more upward angle however, his entire upper body reactively screamed in protest.  _What the—_

 _...Wait._ There was that nose dive he'd taken in his dorm room, he thought as he dropped back onto the mattress.

"Reminded of your antics just now, weren't you?"

"Ok fine...I had that coming to me." he groused, pinching the bridge of his nose in an attempt to rid himself of his fuzzy vision. "Was there a cause pinned down?"

"Not yet." she tersely answered. "But while I'm waiting on a few tests, mind explaining to me what compelled you to sneak out despite  __everything_ _  I've told you these past few days about your _health_ and _well-being_? Because where it stands right now, it looks like I'm going to have to tether you to the bed since my warnings apparently go in one ear and out the other."

Removing his fingers from the inner corners of his eyes and attempting to sit himself up again with that arm despite the pain, the commander's tenacity was rewarded with the colour draining from his face and sight of the room fading almost immediately.

-—-

Slowly opening his eyes, the sight before him looked far different from the one he last saw. With the lack of natural sunlight filtering through the window, Squall deduced that a couple of hours must have passed since he was up last. More importantly, something major must have happened during that time frame — he had an oxygen mask strapped around his face and...it felt like there was something taped to his chest aside from the shoulder wound dressing from underneath his infirmary gown; the slight pull of extra adhesive was rather irritating. Squall felt better energy-wise but that was the only boon to be found about this whole situation. Namely that he'd noticed another new addition to this area of room — a heart monitor.

Soon, he found the digits of his left arm instinctively drawing itself to the collar of the gown, pain radiating around the area every so often. Fingering the material, he lifted the gown away from his skin. A swath of taped gauze covered the general area but there seemed to be something else further down—

"Leave it alone — I don't need you flat-lining."

His stomach plummeted at the sound of Dr. Kadowaki's voice echoing from her desk.

His fingers quickly changed course and darted upward to lift the mask away from his mouth and over his head, slightly wincing in pain the action brought.

"...What the hell happened?" he croaked as the doctor got up from her chair and walked towards him.

"We found the cause of your earlier fainting episodes." she began to explain. Pausing, she sat herself down on a nearby chair on his right to speak to him at face-level. "The toxin reached your heart and affected its natural pacemaker, slowing your heart rate down enough to cause the fainting episodes. We didn't catch it earlier due to your naturally-low resting rate but-" She reached to take the mask from him to place on the bedside table. "-we were able to fit you with a temporary pacemaker to completely negate the effects for now. I'd rather avoid putting in permanent one if I can help it."

As he was hearing all this, Squall's eyes drifted towards the window pane behind Dr. Kadowaki. "...Where do you think it'll reach next?" he found himself quietly asking.

"It's hard to say." the doctor honestly answered. "All that can be done at this moment is keep tabs on any changes in your condition. Just be sure to inform me of any changes you notice, no matter how minor they seem. Honestly, I don't see this damage reversing itself without a serum given the way it's been progressing but...hopefully this is the last leg of the toxin's run."

 _...Or else I'm as good as dead,_  Squall mentally appended as Dr. Kadowaki got up from the chair. When his view was no longer obstructed by her figure, he noticed the sight of the empty room showcasing a neatly-made bed in front of him.

"Before you ask, she was discharged this afternoon since there was nothing wrong with her." Dr. Kadowaki explained, effectively catching Squall's attention. "Would have been the case for you too before this all happened."

Furrowing his brows, he asked, "...Where is she now?"

"She's rooming with Selphie as an extra precaution on both fronts." the doctor replied. "You'll be transferred to her old bed to give you more privacy sometime tomorrow when Addison is around to help. But for now, I want you resting since you failed to do that much yesterday."

Squall narrowed his eyes slightly. "Whatever you had to say to me before I lost consciousness, just spit it out now and get it over with." he acidically spat.

"I have nothing to say that I haven't said already." she sternly responded, folding her arms. "You still owe me an explanation though."

"It won't change anything."

"I found you unconscious with your face buried in a book about sorcery." she began, her tone softened somewhat. "Given you were stupid enough to go out there alone instead of waiting until tomorrow to ask someone to fetch the book for you, I'm guessing it was something urgent. I'd be able to put 2 and 2 together myself if it weren't for the book falling when I moved you."

Drawing a breath, Squall admitted, "It wasn't."

"Then what was it and why couldn't it wait?"

The commander remained silent.

"Considering the fact that getting you to admit anything vaguely personal related to a certain  _sorceress_ is like pulling teeth, I'm guessing it has something to do along those lines."

Raising a brow, Squall had to snort. "...When have I ever let people pry into my personal life?"

"Fair enough. But let's be adults here, shall we?" the doctor replied, "To call a spade a spade, something has obviously changed between the two of you since the last time she was here at the SeeD ball. I don't care if you've slept with her, I don't care if you've secretly married her or if you've suddenly become bestest buddies. And I  _will_  deny I ever uttered the words 'bestest buddies.' The point is, I'm not doing this for gossip's sake. If there's something that can possibly affect things with your  _health_ or Rinoa's _,_  I want to know."

"...I was looking up what the text had said about possible triggers for pain transference. Something the headmaster said sounded deliberately vague and certain comments during the conversation with you and Rinoa didn't help my suspicions any." he explained. "...I wasn't lying when I said it wouldn't change anything."

Dr. Kadowaki tossed him a wry look. "Now, was that so hard?"

"Yes."

"Smart-ass. Now go get some rest before I feel compelled to smack some actual sense into you."

Wordlessly, Squall complied, not particularly interested in having his brain picked at anyway.

...He just hoped that he'd be able to wake up the next morning to be able to witness another day after all this had happened so suddenly.

-—-

"...How are you feeling sleepyhead?"

Cracking an eye open, Squall was greeted with a flash of blindingly-bright yellow scorching into his retinas in midst of his early morning haze. Covering the opened eye with an open palm an inch away from his face despite the slight pinch of his nerves, he slowly opened the other and lowered his arm. She was staring back at him, a slight smile gracing her features though looking a little pale, clutching a woman's magazine of some sort and wearing what looked like Selphie's old overalls-dress from years ago and the denim skirt she'd been wearing prior to the shooting.

"...Better." he answered. "Could use a pair of sunglasses though."

Naturally, Rinoa gave him a look for this. "Gee, thanks. I was  _so_  worried you wouldn't be able criticize my temporary wardrobe Squall."

"Could be worse. You could have been forced to wear the ugly plaid shirt."

"I've said it once and I'll say it again, you pick the worst times to be cute with me." she light-heartedly chided, setting down the magazine on the nearby table. Taking two steps forward, she leaned in to cautiously wrap her arms around his neck and shoulders to hug him before whispering,  _"... I'm still glad you're doing better though. You had me scared for a moment there."_

Squall suddenly felt the pangs of guilt that had been largely absent during Dr. Kadowaki's lectures settle in his gut and constrict his throat, spurning the sudden need to utter a quiet sorry to her right then.

 _"_ _Don't be."_  she reassured him.  _"I'm just glad you're ok."_

After pausing for a moment, perhaps a moment too long considering her lips were directly in front of his right now, she carefully loosened her hold on him and took a step back. While it managed to feel as if they were alone with Dr. Kadowaki in other parts of the infirmary and Addison not in just yet, he knew that the illusion could easily dissipate at any moment and it was not the time to indulge in sudden flights of fancy.

Seconds later, his self-restraint was rewarded with the knowledge that they would have been walked in on by none other than Xu a mere few seconds after the door hissed open, which was also the very instant Rinoa had pulled away.

"Rinoa. Squall." she greeted with a curt nod at the foot of the bed before turning towards the latter. "I heard about the emergency procedure. Went well, I presume?"

Squall nodded back. "It did."

"Dr. Kadowaki tell you the extent of the situation?"

"The damage is not likely to recede on its own unless if an appropriate serum is administered." he frankly answered, shifting into to commander mode. "...Any progress on your end?"

"Unfortunately not. I've interviewed both fishermen who were said to be docked on that day and a few others to no avail. No one saw anyone matching the shooter's general description, then again, they all seemed more preoccupied with the declining quality of their catches rather than answering questions."

"Maybe both things could be connected?" Rinoa piped in, earning Xu's attention.

"Why? Were you both hit with bad fish too and neglected to tell me?"

"Uh...no. I was thinking more along the lines of the possibility of the gun being dumped in the harbour." she clarified. "Any leftover poison on the unused bullets could be what's making the fish sick."

Xu shrugged. "I doubt that such a tiny amount would affect that many fish but it's probably a good idea to check the water next." Turning back to Squall, she added, "Nothing else I need to know?"

"No."

"Alright. I'll go conduct that search then. I'll be back sometime for the follow-up on that."

As he nodded at her, the dark-haired SeeD left the foot of the bed, the telltale hiss signalling she'd completely left the room shortly after. The said signal also served as a cue for the sorceress to sit down on the chair and lay her eyes on him again.

"...It's really that bad?"

"Unfortunately, yeah."

When the door hissed open again, Squall assumed that Xu had come back for something, only to see a figure with long mouse-brown hair zip by his bed and to the other half of the infirmary – Addison.

_"I'm sorry I'm late Dr. Kadowaki, I accidentally overslept and—"_

_"—It's fine SeeD Halley. You're only late by 10 minutes – no need for apology, just make sure you try not to do it again."_ Dr. Kadowaki's voice echoed from the other side. _"_ _Commander Leonhart needs his dressings changed. Can you attend to that while I'm doing this?"_

_"Yes, definitely."_

Roughly a half-minute's worth of feet shuffling around, random clings, clangs and rattles and rampant squeaking emanating from the cart's wheels, Addison appeared by the foot of the bed, looking slightly over-eager and over-prepared with all the necessary materials neatly aligned with military precision.

"Hello Commander Leonhart." the intern greeted, shifting her gaze to the sorceress soon after. "Hello Miss Heartilly."

"Hi Addison." Rinoa greeted back. "Feel free to call me Rinoa if you want."

"Alright. ...Will try to remember that." she politely replied with a slight nod. A small silence soon followed, rendering the space unnaturally still. Then Rinoa suddenly jerked upright.

"Oh! You need me to go, don't you?" she asked with a slightly harried tone, picking up her magazine at the table by her, telegraphing her assumption of the answer she expected to receive.

"You don't have to right away since I can tend to the other side first if you want...and if the commander has no objections. Might be a bit boring though."

"Aah...I'd better go then." the sorceress decided. Turning towards him, she added, "I'll visit sometime later, promise."

After he gave her a curt nod, she quietly walked away just as Addison began to undo the top tie to the back of his gown. When he stole one last look at the sorceress however, she had the misfortune of reciprocating the brief spark of eye contact at the exact moment she should have been manoeuvring around the cart and ended up colliding right into it, causing a roll of surgical tape and some gauze to fall to the floor.

"Oh...I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"...No, no, it's ok." Quickly moving her hands away from the ties, Addison bent down to retrieve some of the fallen items, adding, "It's just gauze and tape. Nothing to worry about."

During the few seconds Addison was crouched down, Squall used the valuable time to shoot Rinoa a rare amused look to which she responded with a hissy look in kind even though the effect was slightly lost with the slight blush now spreading across her cheeks. When the intern stood up at full height once more and set the objects back, all traces of his previous expression had long since faded and Rinoa had had already left the area altogether.

As Addison proceeded to lower the top part of the gown and began to change the shoulder and pacemaker dressings, Dr. Kadowaki walked by.

"What was the commotion about?"

"Rinoa walked into the cart on her way out. Probably because she seemed like she was in a hurry to leave." Addison quickly explained. The way doctor then smirked in Squall's general direction made it clear that she had other thoughts on the matter, however.

 _Above gossip, my ass,_  he thought sardonically, fairly certain that her thoughts had nothing to do with the words 'bestest buddies.'


End file.
